Module 5

Prepared by,
Philip Jacob Perakathu
Assistant Professor – Mechanical Engineering Department
Saintgits College of Engineering, Pathamuttom
 Introduction
 When a material is stressed beyond the elastic limit, two
different things can happen:
 The material deforming plastically leading to continued plastic
deformation to almost 100% reduction in area and then to
complete rupture.
 The material ruptures without any visible signs of plastic
deformation.

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 Fracture
 Simple fracture is the separation of a body into two or more
pieces in response to an imposed stress that is static (i.e.,
constant or slowly changing with time) and at temperatures
that are low relative to the melting temperature of the
material.
 The applied stress may be tensile, compressive, shear, or
torsional.
 For engineering materials, two fracture modes are possible
 Ductile
 Brittle

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 Cont…
 Any fracture process involves two steps—crack formation
and propagation—in response to an imposed stress.
 The mode of fracture is highly dependent on the mechanism
of crack propagation.
 Ductile fracture is characterized by extensive plastic
deformation in the vicinity of an advancing crack.
 Furthermore, the process proceeds relatively slowly as the
crack length is extended.
 Such a crack is often said to be stable.
 It resists any further extension unless there is an increase in
the applied stress.

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 Cont…
 In addition, there will ordinarily be evidence of appreciable
gross deformation at the fracture surfaces.
 On the other hand, for brittle fracture, cracks may spread
extremely rapidly, with very little accompanying plastic
deformation.
 Such cracks may be said to be unstable, and crack propagation,
once started, will continue spontaneously without an
increase in magnitude of the applied stress.

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 Cont…
 Ductile fracture is almost always preferred for two reasons.
 First, brittle fracture occurs suddenly and catastrophically
without any warning. On the other hand, for ductile fracture,
the presence of plastic deformation gives warning that fracture
is imminent, allowing preventive measures to be taken.
 Second, more strain energy is required to induce ductile
fracture inasmuch as ductile materials are generally tougher.
 Under the action of an applied tensile stress, most metal
alloys are ductile, whereas ceramics are notably brittle, and
polymers may exhibit both types of fracture.

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 (a) Highly ductile fracture in which the specimen necks down to a point. (b) Moderately
ductile fracture after some necking. (c) Brittle fracture without any plastic deformation.

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 Cont…
 Ductile fracture
 The fracture process normally occurs in several stages.
 First, after necking begins, small cavities, or micro voids, form in the interior
of the cross section.
 Next, as deformation continues, these micro voids enlarge, come together, and
coalesce to form an elliptical crack, which has its long axis perpendicular to
the stress direction.
 The crack continues to grow in a direction parallel to its major axis by this
micro void coalescence process.

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 Cont…
 Ductile fracture (cont…)
 Fracture process (cont…)
 Finally, fracture ensues by the rapid propagation of a crack around the
outer perimeter of the neck, by shear deformation at an angle of about
with the tensile axis—this is the angle 450 at which the shear stress is a
maximum.
 Sometimes a fracture having this characteristic surface contour is termed
a cup-and-cone fracture because one of the mating surfaces is in the form of
a cup, the other like a cone

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 Cont…
 Brittle Fracture
 Brittle fracture takes place without any appreciable
deformation, and by rapid crack propagation.
 The direction of crack motion is very nearly perpendicular to
the direction of the applied tensile stress and yields a relatively
flat fracture surface.
 Any signs of gross plastic deformation will be absent.
 For very hard and fine-grained metals, there will be no
discernible fracture pattern.
 Brittle fracture in amorphous materials, such as ceramic glasses,
yields a relatively shiny and smooth surface.

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 Cont…
 Brittle Fracture (cont…)
 For most brittle crystalline materials, crack propagation corresponds
to the successive and repeated breaking of atomic bonds along specific
crystallographic planes; such a process is termed cleavage.
 This type of fracture is said to be transgranular (or transcrystalline),
because the fracture cracks pass through the grains.
 Macroscopically, the fracture surface may have a grainy or faceted
texture, as a result of changes in orientation of the cleavage planes
from grain to grain.
 In some alloys, crack propagation is along grain boundaries; this
fracture is termed intergranular.

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 Cont…
 Ductile to brittle transitions
 Impact energy (notch toughness).
 It is a measure of the energy absorbed during the fracture of a specimen
of standard dimensions and geometry when subjected to very rapid
(impact) loading.
 Charpy and Izod impact tests are used to measure this parameter, which is
important in assessing the ductile-to-brittle transition behavior of a
material.

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 Specimen used for Charpy and Izod impact test

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 Cont…
 Ductile to brittle transitions (cont…)
 The ductile-to-brittle transition is related to the temperature
dependence of the measured impact energy absorption.
 At higher temperatures the impact energy is relatively large, in
correlation with a ductile mode of fracture.
 As the temperature is lowered, the impact energy drops
suddenly over a relatively narrow temperature range, below
which the energy has a constant but small value; that is, the
mode of fracture is brittle.
 For many alloys there is a range of temperatures over which the
ductile-to-brittle transition occurs.

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 Liberty ship (during the second World War) is a well-known and dramatic example of the brittle
fracture of steel that was thought to be ductile.

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 Cont…
 Ductile to brittle transitions (cont…)
 Few remedial measures:
 Lowering the ductile-to-brittle temperature of the steel to an acceptable
level by improving steel quality (e.g., reducing sulfur and phosphorus
impurity contents).
 Rounding off hatch corners by welding a curved reinforcement strip on
each corner.
 Installing crack-arresting devices such as riveted straps and strong weld
seams to stop propagating cracks.
 Improving welding practices and establishing welding codes.

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 Cont…
 Principles of Fracture mechanics
 Fracture mechanics –
 Subject allows quantification of the relationships between material
properties, stress level, the presence of crack-producing flaws, and crack
propagation mechanisms.
 Fundamental principles of the mechanics of fracture includes:
 Stress Concentration
 Fracture Toughness

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 Cont…
 Principles of Fracture mechanics (cont…)
 Stress Concentration (Griffith‘s theory of fracture)
 The measured fracture strengths for most materials are significantly lower
than those predicted by theoretical calculations based on atomic bonding
energies.
 This discrepancy is explained by the presence of microscopic flaws or
cracks that always exist under normal conditions at the surface and within
the interior of a body of material.
 These flaws are a cause of harm/damage to the fracture strength because
an applied stress may be amplified or concentrated at the tip, the
magnitude of this amplification depending on crack orientation and
geometry.

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 Cont…
 Principles of Fracture mechanics (cont…)
 Stress Concentration (cont…)
 A stress profile across a cross section containing an internal crack, is
shown in the diagram (next slide)
 As indicated by this profile, the magnitude of this localized stress
diminishes with distance away from the crack tip.
 At positions far the stress is just the nominal stress σ0 or the applied load
divided by the specimen cross-sectional area (perpendicular to this load).
 Due to their ability to amplify an applied stress in their locale, these flaws
are sometimes called stress raisers.

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 Cont…
 Principles of Fracture mechanics (cont…)
 Stress Concentration (cont…)
 If it is assumed that a crack is similar to an elliptical hole through a plate,
and is oriented perpendicular to the applied stress, the maximum stress
σm, occurs at the crack tip and may be approximated by
σm = 2σ0 (a/ρt)½
σm – magnitude of the maximum stress
σ0 – magnitude of the nominal applied stress
a – length of the surface crack
ρt – radius of the curvature of the crack tip

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 Cont…
 Principles of Fracture mechanics (cont…)
 Stress Concentration (cont…)
 For a relatively long microcrack that has a small tip radius of curvature,
the factor (a/ρt)½ may be very large.
 This will yield a value of σm that is many times the value of σo.
 Stress Concentration factor Kt is a measure of the degree to which an
external stress is amplified at the tip of a crack.
Kt = 2 (a/ρt) ½

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 Cont…
 Principles of Fracture mechanics (cont…)
 Stress Concentration (cont…)
 All brittle materials contain a population of small cracks and flaws that
have a variety of sizes, geometries, and orientations.
 When the magnitude of a tensile stress at the tip of one of these flaws
exceeds the value of this critical stress, a crack forms and then
propagates, which results in fracture.

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 Cont…
 Principles of Fracture mechanics (cont…)
 Stress Concentration (cont…)
 An increase in surface is required to generate extra surface area.
 Source of this increased surface energy is the elastic strain energy which is
released as the crack spreads.
 A crack will propagate when the decrease in elastic strain energy is at
least equal to the energy required to create the new crack surface.
→ dUE/da = dUS/da
→ UE = (σ2 /2E) x (2 π a2) x 1 [i.e. (σ2 /2E) x area x thickness]
→ US = (2aɣs) x 2 [since there are 2 surfaces for the crack]
The stress required to propagate a crack in a brittle material,
σ = (2Eɣs/π a)(1/2)
where, E - modulus of elasticity, ɣs - specific surface energy
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 Cont…
 Principles of Fracture mechanics (cont…)
 Fracture Toughness
 Fracture toughness measures the ability of a material containing a flaw to
withstand an applied load.
 It is a property that is a measure of a material‘s resistance to brittle
fracture when a crack is present.
Kc = Y σ (π a)(1/2)
Kc has the unusual units of MPa √m;Y is a dimensionless parameter or
function that depends on both crack and specimen sizes and geometries as
well as the manner of load application; σ is the applied stress.
 For relatively thin specimens, the value of Kc will depend on specimen
thickness.
 However, when specimen thickness is much greater than the crack
dimensions, Kc becomes independent of thickness
 The Kc value for this thick-specimen situation is known as the plane strain
fracture toughness KIc
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 The three modes of crack surface displacement. (a) Mode I, opening or
tensile mode; (b) mode II, sliding mode; and (c) mode III, tearing mode.

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 Cont…
 Design using fracture mechanics
 Three variables must be considered relative to the possibility for
fracture of some structural component—namely (assuming that
―Y‖ has been determined),
 The fracture toughness (Kc) or plane strain fracture toughness (KIc),
 The imposed stress, σc and
 The flaw size (a)
 It is important to realize that once any combination of two of the
above parameters is prescribed, the third becomes fixed.

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 Cont…
 Importance of fracture mechanics
 Selection of a material
 If we know the maximum size ‗a‘ of flaws in the material and the
magnitude of the applied stress, we can select a material that has a
fracture toughness Kc or KIc large enough to prevent the flaw from
growing.
 Design of a component
 If we know the maximum size of any flaw and the material (and therefore
its Kc or KIc has already been selected), we can calculate the maximum
stress that the component can withstand.
 Then we can size the part appropriately to ensure that the maximum
stress is not exceeded.

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 Cont…
 Importance of fracture mechanics (cont…)
 Design of a manufacturing or testing method
 If the material has been selected, the applied stress is known, and the size
of the component is fixed, we can calculate the maximum size of a flaw
that can be tolerated.
 A nondestructive testing technique that detects any flaw greater than this
critical size can help ensure that the part will function safely.
 In addition, we find that, by selecting the correct manufacturing process,
we can produce flaws that are all smaller than this critical size.

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