The influence of the plastic potential on plane strain failure

The influence of the shape of the plastic potential in the deviatoric plane on plane strain collapse is investigated. The most commonly employed elastic-perfect plastic models are considered, which adopt well-known failure criteria for defining the yield and plastic potential surfaces, namely the von Mises, the Drucker–Prager, the Tresca, the Mohr–Coulomb and the Matsuoka–Nakai criteria. Finally, the conclusions are also extended to strain hardening/softening models. For simple constitutive models based on perfect plasticity, it is shown that the value of the Lode’s angle at plastic collapse in plane strain conditions strongly depends on the specific failure surface adopted for reproducing the plastic potential surface. If the value of the Lode’s angle at yield coincides with the failure value prescribed by the plastic potential, the stress–strain curves exhibit the typical perfect plastic behaviour with yield coinciding with failure, otherwise the stress changes after yield and the stress-strain curves resemble those of strain hardening/softening models. The infinite strength which is in some situations exhibited by the Drucker–Prager model in plane strain condi- tion is investigated and explained, and it is shown that this can also affect strain hardening/softening models.