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Single parameter characterisation of the crack/notch tip field using fracture mechanics parameters like K, J or CTOD has been extremely powerful in advancing predictive technologies for critical or sub-critical crack growth. It has also become clear over the last 40 years that single parameter approaches have limitations particularly in dealing with crack growth phenomena arising from crack tip shielding, often resulting from the plastic enclave surrounding a crack. Influences of this enclave on the crack tip stress field ahead of the crack are maximised during cyclic loading. In the case of a parameter like stress intensity factor, K, which characterises the crack tip field via an elastic approximation, it is not surprising that any set of plasticity-induced circumstances which perturb the size of the plastic enclave and its associated strain field lead to predictive difficulties. Over the last 30 years, notable areas of activity related to such difficulties include short cracks, plasticity-induced closure, variable amplitude and multiaxial loading and notch effects. Thus an increasing number of authors and research groups, particularly in Europe, are working on the topic of characterisation of crack tip stresses using more than one fracture mechanics parameter. Attention has been directed, for example, towards incorporating the T-stress into life prediction methods. The T-stress is the second term in a Williams-type expansion of the crack tip stresses and it affects the extent and shape of crack tip plasticity. It would therefore be expected to be influential in plasticity-related crack growth phenomena and a number of publications have demonstrated this to be true. The situation is further complicated where a crack experiences multiaxial loading and Modes II and III fracture mechanics parameters are also necessary. Other research groups have focussed attention on incorporating additional elastic fracture mechanics parameters into crack/notch tip characterisation, which describe the effects of an Eshelby-type ‘plastic inclusion’ on an elastic stress field.
The first highly successful workshop on this topic was held in Forni di Sopra, Udine, Italy in March 2011 and the proceedings were published as a joint-Special Issue of IJFatigue and FFEMS.

Francesco Iacoviello (Università di Cassino e del Lazio Meridionale, Italy)

M. Neil James (University of Plymouth, United Kingdom)

Pablo Lopez-Crespo (University de Malaga, Spain)

Luca Susmel (University of Sheffield, United Kingdom)