476 10 Thick-walled Cylinders and Disks
first yield. From a design perspective, most of the interesting results can be obtained
from the elastic ‘first yield’ analysis and the fully plastic analysis. In the present case,
the latter can of course be obtained directly by imposing the edge condition
σ
rr
= 0
at r = a in the expression for the stresses in the plastic zone.
For this reason, the complexities of an elastic-plastic solution are not justified in
most practical applications. One exception is Problem 10.21, which describes a test
method for determining the properties of soils.
10.5.4 Other failure modes
There is no guarantee that failure of the cylinder or disk will involve plastic defor-
mation at all radii. For example, an annular disk with a large ratio between inner and
outer radii (such as Problem 10.22) and loaded by internal pressure will fail as soon
as the internal pressure reaches the yield stress in compression and before yielding
has progressed to the outer radius. The innermost layer of material will then yield
in compression, since there is no restraint to axial motion (
σ
zz
=0), and we shall see
a thin layer of material extruded in the axial direction, much as a layer of viscous
liquid could be squozen out from the interface between two disks during a shrink fit.
Problems exhibiting this kind of behavior can generally be identified by the fact
that the attempt to solve the fully-plastic problem runs into difficulties. For example,
the fully-plastic solution for the thick-walled cylinder in §10.5.2 above breaks down
if it predicts
σ
θθ
<
σ
zz
at the inner radius. This is again an indication that we might
expect axial extrusion of material at the inner radius. However, the cylinder differs
from the disk in that there is nowhere for the material to go. In fact, the assumption
that plane sections remain plane demands that stresses resisting this axial motion
will be developed. As a result, the axial stress distribution
σ
zz
will deviate from
equation (10.31) (which was developed from elastic arguments) sufficiently to ensure
that axial motion of material does not occur. In effect,
σ
zz
will decrease at the inner
radius, sufficiently to leave (
σ
θθ
−
σ
rr
) as the greatest stress difference, and increase
at the outer radius in order to preserve axial equilibrium. This process can continue
until the whole cylinder is plastic.
10.5.5 Unloading and residual stresses
If a cylinder or disk is loaded into the plastic range and then unloaded, the unloading
process will generally move the stress state inside the yield envelope and hence be
elastic. In extreme cases, complete unloading might cause the state to reach the yield
envelope at a different point and hence cause additional plastic deformation, but
this possibility can be detected by performing an elastic analysis and checking the
predicted final stress state.
If unloading is complete (i.e. if the final tractions, rotational speed and tempera-
tures are returned to zero), the final residual stress field is obtained from that at the
maximum load by subtracting the field that would have been obtained at the max-
imum load had the system remained elastic. The reader will recall that a similar