PLASTIC YIELDING OF V-NOTCHED TENSION BARS WITH CIRCULAR ROOTS

Close bounds are found to the rigid/plastic plane strain constraint factor for V-notched bars with circular roots in simple tension. This extends previous work (Ewing and Hill 1967) on sharply-notched bars. The end results are expressed as simple functions of the geometrical parameters, with an error within 0.2 per cent. As long as yielding spreads to the bar sides, without being confined to the notch neighbourhood, the yieldpoint load is found to be fairly insensitive to enlarging, without deepening, the notch. The minimum length of bar needed for these solutions to apply is discussed briefly. Comparisons are made with existing elastic/plastic numerical calculations. In particular, the constraint factor for a semicircularly notched bar, of net width twice its core width, is here found to be 1.386, in contrast to the value 1.22 found by Allen and Southwell (1950) using relaxation methods. © 1968.