Elastic-Plastic Analogy for Examination of Softening Response for Strip Yield Models

Abstract The manner in which the spread of inelastic deformation of a softening cohesive zone affects the load capacity is examined. The analysis makes use of an elastic-plastic analogy to the strip yield model applied to pure bending. The example of pure bending is one case where inelastic deformation contributes to enhancing the load capacity. The analytical solution to the elastic-plastic case is developed for zero hardening (baseline for strip yield case for which analytical solution is known) as well as for a range of linear softening rates. Evaluation of the results shows that the maximu m bending load capacity is always reached before the stress at the surface becomes zero.