Higher-order analysis of crack tip fields in elastic power-law hardening materials

A HIGHER-ORDER asymptotic analysis of a stationary crack in an elastic power-law hardening material has been carried out for plane strain, Mode 1. The extent to which elasticity affects the near-tip fields is determined by the strain hardening exponent n. Five terms in the asymptotic series for the stresses have been derived for n = 3. However, only three amplitudes can be independently prescribed. These are K1, K2 and K5 corresponding to amplitudes of the first-, second- and fifth-order terms. Four terms in the asymptotic series have been obtained for n = 5, 7 and 10; in these cases, the independent amplitudes are K1, K2 and K4. It is found that appropriate choices of K2 and K4 can reproduce near-tip fields representative of a broad range of crack tip constraints in moderate and low hardening materials. Indeed, fields characterized by distinctly different stress triaxiality levels (established by finite element analysis) have been matched by the asymptotic series. The zone of dominance of the asymptotic series extends over distances of about 10 crack openings ahead of the crack tip encompassing length scales that are microstructurally significant. Furthermore, the higher-order terms collectively describe a spatially uniform hydrostatic stress field (of adjustable magnitude) ahead of the crack. Our results lend support to a suggestion that J and a measure of near-tip stress triaxiality can describe the full range of near-tip states.

Singular behaviour near the tip of a sharp V-notch in a power law hardening material

This paper presents an asymptotic analysis of the near-tip stress and strain fields of a sharp V-notch in a power law hardening material. First, the asymptotic solutions of the HRR type are obtained for the plane stress problem under symmetric loading. It is found that the angular distribution function of the radial stress sigma(r) presents rapid variation with the polar angle if the notch angle beta is smaller than a critical notch angle; otherwise, there is no such phenomena. Secondly, the asymptotic solutions are developed for antisymmetric loading in the cases of plane strain and plane stress. The accurate calculation results and the detailed comparisons are given as well. All results show that the singular exponent s is changeable for various combinations of loading condition and plane problem.

Non-modal instabilities of two-dimensional disturbances in plane Couette flow of a power-law fluid

Instabilities of fluid flows have traditionally been investigated by normal mode analysis, i.e. by linearizing the equations of flow and testing for unstable eigenvalues of the linearized problem. However, the results of eigenvalue analysis agree poorly in many cases with experiments, especially for shear flows. In this paper we study the instabilities of two-dimensional Couette flow of a polymeric fluid in the framework of non-modal stability theory rather than normal mode analysis. A power-law model is used to describe the polymeric liquid. We focus on the response to external excitations and initial conditions by examining the pseudospectra structures and the transient energy growths. For both Newtonian and non-Newtonian flows, the results show that there can be a rather large transient growth even though the linear operator of Couette flow has no unstable eigenvalue. The effects of non-Newtonian viscosity on the transient behaviors are examined in this study. The results show that the "shear-thinning/shear-thickening" effect increases/decreases the amplitude of responses to external excitations and initial conditions. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.