“…Following the introduction of the J-integral [71, J, has been accepted as a elastic/plastic fracture initiation criterion [10,11,12,13] Equation 17indicates that the loading increments will be proportional (de, E iii) if the first term dominates, which may be assured when a < <dJ (19) r J If there exists an annular region [55]. The effects of material strain hardening, small scale yield [54], and the correlation between tearing instability and Turner's -q factor [57] have also been investigated.…”