Estimation of the plastic zone by finite element method under mixed mode (I and II) loading

Material fracture by opening (mode I) is not lonely responsible for fracture propagation. Many industrial examples show the presence of mode II and mixed mode I + II. The present work consists in the elaboration of a code to estimate the size of the plastic zone at the crack tip under mode I, mode II and mixed mode I + II loading. The computations are made according to Von Mises and Tresca criteria. The results obtained are compared to those measured by experiments.