Experimental study of inelastic stress concentration around a circular notch

Abstract

Experiments were conducted to determine whether energy-density relations can be used to predict elastic-plastic stresses and strains near a circular notch for 7075-T6 aluminum alloys and ARALL 4 composites. The loading conditions were tension and four-point bending. Glinka and Neuber have developed relations that predict local inelastic strain response based on the stress- strain solution for small plastic zone sizes. It has been shown that these relations are appropriate for simple tension and in-plane bending, where stress and strain are uniform through the thickness. This study investigates the application of the Glinka and Neuber relations to samples where stress/strain is not constant though the thickness. Nonconstant stress/strain are the result of out-of-plane bending and laminate characteristics.