Plastic hinges development and crack stability analysis in a circular ring

The primary purpose of this work is to demonstrate that the location of a crack can strongly a€ect the sequence of plastic hinge development which in turn a€ects crack stability of a structure. A speci®c example of an elastic±plastic ring loaded with diametrically opposite concentrated loads is employed to investigate these e€ects. The method used is based on elastic superposition to obtain the elastic±plastic behavior and to evaluate the crack stability with plastic hinges present