Plastic zones in glassy polymers around cracks approaching a bimaterial interface under small‐scale yielding

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Abstract
A study of the plastic zones created around the tips of cracks in glassy polymers, under small scale yielding, can be confronted by using the two well‐known pressure‐modified yield criteria and the elastic solution of the problem. There is particular interest in the case of a cracked body reinforced by another more resisting body under plane‐strain conditions. The shapes of plastic zones developed around the tips of the crack subjected to opening mode loadinng conditons are examined as the crack approaches perpendicularly the bimaterial interface. For the study of plastic zones the exact solution derived from Muskhelishvili's complex potentials was used. Moreover, the plastic zones are confronted using either the exact solution or Sneddon's asymptotic expansion.