Abstract
The authors present a method for calculating the analytic dependence of plastic work on surface energy for polycrystalline metallic materials. This method renders a possibility to determine changes of the critical-strain-energy release rate needed for initiation and extension of brittle cracks due to a change of microstructural parameters. According to the obtained result, the dependence of plastic work on surface energy is increasing very quickly and monotonously with the surface energy. At low values of the surface energy the plastic work is influenced only slightly by the parameter of the strain rate sensitivity but at higher values of the surface energy, especially for the values in the vicinity of 1 J m^-2, its effect is very strong.

Key words
plastic work, surface energy, polycrystalline metallic materials

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