NASA NTRS1977
It is found that the standard expressions for elastic stress and displacement in the crack-tip region (i.e., the so-called singular solution) cannot be considered to be approximations that are acceptable in a completely general sense. This conclusion is best illustrated by the instance of a biaxially loaded infinite sheet with a flat horizontal central crack, where the effect of load applied parallel to the plane of the crack appears entirely in the second terms of the series representations for local stresses and displacements. An elastoplastic finite-element analysis of the same biaxially loaded finite specimen geometry shows that the global energy release rate, the J-integral, the plastic stress and strain intensity factors (in the sense of Hilton and Hutchinson), and the size of the crack border region plastic yield, all have pronounced biaxial load dependence.