Distributions of stress and plastic strain in notched tensile bars

The paper deals with a classical problem in fracture mechanics, namely the determination of stresses and plastic strains at the minimum cross-section of a notched tensile specimen. Ideas of Hill and Bridgman are combined to d evelop a new approximate method for solving this problem. The main aim of t he paper is to introduce a damage variable in the analysis without any comp licated numerical procedure. The material model proposed by Lemaitre is use d to predict the evolution of the damage variable. However, any other model resulting in the incompressibility condition may be adopted with no diffic ulties.