ABSTRACT
It is now well-established that in the presence of a large fracture process zone near the crack tip, the basic assumptions of linear elastic fracture mechanics (LEFM) are no longer valid [1]. Specifically, in some polymers, the occurrence of void nucleation and growth ahead of the crack-tip results in a damage (process) zone that is not traction free. Further, for a crack in a fiber-reinforced polymer matrix composite, fiber-bridging may also be present within the damage zone. Therefore, in such cases, a cohesive layer modeling approach would be more accurate in accounting for the nonlinear processes that occur within the “damage zone”.
