Energy flux into process region in elastic-plastic fracture problems

Abstract Formulas for the fluxes of total and free energies into a finite fracture process region near a crack tip are derived taking account of the effects of the plastic deformation, thermal strain, body forces and inertia forces. Two different limiting procedures of shrinking the size of the process region are considered in order to obtain the formulas for a crack model with an infinitesimal process region. The formulations are extended to three-dimensional crack problems.