THE INFLUENCE OF PLASTICITY ON MIXED-MODE INTERFACE TOUGHNESS

CALCULATIONS are reported for the mixed mode toughness of an interface joining an elastic-plastic solid to a solid which does not yield plastically. A potential function of the components of the crack face displacements is used to generate the tractions along the interface where the fracture processes causing separation occur. The two main parameters characterizing this potential are the work of separation per unit area and a peak normal stress. This description of the interface separation process is embedded within the continuum description as a boundary condition on the interface linking the adjoining solids. Small-scale yielding in plane strain is considered with the remote field specified by the magnitude and phase of the mixed mode stress intensity factors. Crack growth resistance curves are computed for a range of the most important nondimensional material parameters and for various combinations of remote mixed mode loading. Particular emphasis is placed on the ratio of the steady-state interface toughness to the ''intrinsic'' work of separation as it depends on plastic yielding and on the combination of modes 1 and 2. Plasticity enhances the interface toughness for all modes of loading, but substantially more so in the presence of a significant mode 2 component of loading than in near-mode 1 conditions.