• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.27 no.7
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• pp.1159-1169
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• 2003

This paper investigates the effects of T-stress and plastic hardening mismatch on the interfacial crack-tip stress field via finite element analyses. Plane strain elastic-plastic crack-tip fields are modeled with both MBL formulation and a full SEC specimen under pure bending. Modified Prandtl slip line fields illustrate the effects of T-stress on crack-tip constraint in homogeneous material. Compressive T-stress substantially reduces the interfacial crack-tip constraint, but increases the J-contribution by lower hardening material, J$\_$L/. For bimaterials with two elastic-plastic materials, increasing plastic hardening mismatch increases both crack-tip stress constraint in the lower hardening material and J$\_$L/. The fracture toughness for bimaterial joints would consequently be much lower than that of lower hardening homogeneous material. The implication of unbalanced J-integral in bimaterials is also discussed.