Fig. 3: Evolution of the equivalent crack tip strains.

Double logarithmic plot of average equivalent strain in the highly deformed regions (±30°−60°) in front of the crack tip for each loading step. The transparent bound depicts the respective standard errors for each crack tip distance, while dashed lines act as guides for the eye and indicate the strain dependency necessary for valid K- (r−0.5) or HRR- (r−0.98) descriptions, respectively.