Issue 30

M. Rossi et alii, Frattura ed Integrità Strutturale, 30 (2014) 552-557; DOI: 10.3221/IGF-ESIS.30.66 555 In Fig. 2 the experimental set-up is shown, the modified CT-specimen was loaded using suitable fixture which guarantees an in-plane loading. Buckling occurs at large deformation, however it was possible to apply up to 5 kN to the specimen before a consistent out of plane movement was measured. The strain field measurement was obtained by means of stereo DIC. Two cameras have been used with an angle of around 15°. A speckle pattern was sprayed onto the specimen surface. The investigated area is around 6 × 6 mm close to the crack tip. A global DIC approach is used using a regular mesh of 32 × 32 pixels that corresponds to 0.8 × 0.8 mm in actual units. The strain at each pixel was then obtained using the shape function of the elements  X -4 -2 0 -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 -2 0 2 4 6 x 10 -3  Y -4 -2 0 -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 -2 0 2 4 6 8 x 10 -3  XY -4 -2 0 -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 -5 0 5 x 10 -3 Figure 3 : Measured strain field. R ESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS he error function obtained from Eq. 7 is plotted for different values of the tensile force, see Fig. 4. The same contour limits are used for all graphs. As the force increases, the error function also increases close to the crack tip showing the evolution of the plastic zone. A certain amount of noise is present, but the evolution of the plastic zone is clearly visible. Force: 1758 N -4 -2 0 -2 0 2 0 500 1000 1500 2000 Force: 1991 N -4 -2 0 -2 0 2 0 500 1000 1500 2000 Force: 2593 N -4 -2 0 -2 0 2 0 500 1000 1500 2000 Force: 3231 N -4 -2 0 -2 0 2 0 500 1000 1500 2000 Force: 3938 N -4 -2 0 -2 0 2 0 500 1000 1500 2000 Force: 4662 N -4 -2 0 -2 0 2 0 500 1000 1500 2000 Figure 4 : Identification of the plastic radius. T