We examine the conditions for dislocation nucleation beneath a plane strain rectangular indenter using an analytical model. Firstly, the equivalent driving force on a singularity is derived in a compact form. With this general result, the driving force is expressed in the form of complex integral formulae in terms of Muskhelishvili's complex potentials for rectangular edged contacts. Then, adopting the Rice-Thomson model, we propose a dislocation nucleation criterion for stress contacted surface. The validity of the criterion is compared with a simple experimental result and shows good agreement. The results are discussed and conclusions are drawn.
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