The Effect of Plasticity and Crack Blunting on the Stress Distribution in Orthotropic Composite Materials

A detailed study of the plasticity and crack-tip blunting effects on toughening materials with rectilinear anisotropy is presented. The most important results are the prediction of the extent of plastic zone and the nature of stress distribution produced by the blunting effect in the tensile mode. The analysis was confirmed experimentally and numerically (finite-element method) on a unidirectional fiber-reinforced composite.