Plastic hinges development and crack stability analysis in a circular ring

The primary purpose of this work is to demonstrate that the location of a crack can strongly affect the sequence of plastic hinge development which in turn affects crack stability of a structure. A specific example of an elastic-plastic ring loaded with diametrically opposite concentrated loads is employed to investigate these effects. The method used is based on elastic superposition to obtain the elastic-plastic behavior and to evaluate the crack stability with plastic hinges present. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.