On the ductile enlargement of voids in triaxial stress fields∗

The fracture of ductile solids has frequently been observed to result from the large growth and coalescence of microscopic voids, a process enhanced by the superposition of hydrostatic tensile stresses on a plastic deformation field. The ductile growth of voids is treated here as a problem in continuum plasticity. First, a variational principle is established to characterize the flow field in an elastically rigid and incompressible plastic material containing an internal void or voids, and subjected to a remotely uniform stress and strain rate field. Then an approximate Rayleigh-Ritz procedure is developed and applied to the enlargement of an isolated spherical void in a nonhardening material. Growth is studied in some detail for the case of a remote tensile extension field with superposed hydrostatic stresses. The volume changing contribution to void growth is found to overwhelm the shape changing part when the mean remote normal stress is large, so that growth is essentially spherical. Further, it is found that for any remote strain rate field, the void enlargement rate is amplified over the remote strain rate by a factor rising exponentially with the ratio of mean normal stress to yield stress. Some related results are discussed, including the long cylindrical void considered by F.A. McClintock (1968, J. appl. Mech. 35, 363), and an approximate relation is given to describe growth of a spherical void in a general remote field. The results suggest a rapidly decreasing fracture ductility with increasing hydrostatic tension.