Unit 7: Properties and Applications of Engineering Materials

Assignment 4: Failure and Degradation of Engineering Materials

Task 1: Explain the principles of the modes of failure known as ductile/brittle fracture,
fatigue and creep
The first form of failure is ductile fracture, defined by: “A ductile fracture is a type of fracture
characterized by extensive plastic deformation or necking. This usually occurs prior to the actual
fracture.”[ CITATION COR21 \l 2057 ]. When enough force is applied to an object it will deform.
There are two main types of deformity these are elastic and plastic deformation. Elastic deformation
is demonstrated perfectly by an elastic band, when force is applied the band stretches, but when the
force is removed the elastic band returns to its original form, this is elastic deformation. If the force
applied to the band increases, when the force is removed the band will not return to its original
form, this is plastic deformation. Necking refers to the effect of plastic deformation on an object,
Figure 1 shows an example of necking. In Figure 1 force has been applied to pull both sides of the
object away from each other, an hour glass shape is formed in the middle, this is as a result of plastic
deformation of the object.

Figure 1 [ CITATION Eng12 \l 2057 ]

Figure 2 [ CITATION Wik08 \l 2057 ]

The process of a ductile fracture is shown in Figure 2. The first stage is ‘Necking’, this is where the
applied force causes the object to undergo plastic deformation. The second stage is ‘Void
Nucleation’, this is where the stress causes small cavities to open inside of the object. The third stage
is ‘Void Coalescence’, this is where the small cavities combine to form a crack. As a result of the

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Unit 7: Properties and Applications of Engineering Materials

ductility of the object and the plastic deformation the crack created is classed as ‘stable’. A stable
crack is one that will remain a constant size unless further stress is applied, meaning a large force/
stress is needed to make a ductile object fracture. The fourth stage is ‘Crack Propagation’, this is
where the applied extra stress causes the crack to increase in size, the crack increases in size on a
perpendicular plane to where the stress is applied. The final stage is the final growth of the crack at
45° to the applied force causing the object to fracture and split into two.

Brittle fracture is similar to ductile fracture however there is little to no necking and plastic
deformation because it happens to materials that are not ductile. “A brittle fracture is the fracture of
a metallic object or other material without appreciable prior plastic deformation. It is a break in a
brittle piece of metal that failed because stress exceeded cohesion.”[ CITATION COR211 \l 2057 ].
There are two forms of brittle fractures, these are transgranular and intergranular fractures. The
difference between the two is where the fracture takes place, a trasngranular fracture occurs when
the fracture travels through the grains of the material. An intergranular fracture occurs when the
fracture travels along the grain boundaries instead of going through the grains. The type of fracture
that occurs depends on how strong the grain boundaries are in relation to the grains.

In order for a brittle fracture to occur a stress needs to be applied to

the object, if this stress is large enough it will create a small crack
within the object either in a grain or grain boundary. The cracks
formed in brittle materials are referred to as ‘unstable’ because once
the crack has formed it will continue to increase without an increase
of applied stress. The crack travels at the speed of sound, near
perpendicular to the direction of applied stress, meaning that brittle
fractures occur in an instant without prior warning. The
Figure 3 [ CITATION Res19 \l 2057 ]
perpendicular travel of the crack leads to a near flat surface at the
break, an example of this is shown in Figure 3.

Another form of failure is fatigue, “Material fatigue is a phenomenon where structures fail when
subjected to a cyclic load. This type of structural damage occurs even when the experienced stress
range is far below the static material strength.”[ CITATION COM17 \l 2057 ]. Fatigue happens in both
ductile and brittle materials, it happens as a result of constant cycles of applied stress. A cycle of
stress refers to the change in applied stress over time, a cycle is measured as the time between two
peaks of applied stress. The cycle of applied stress can take the shape of a sine wave. There are
three main stages of a fault due to fatigue. The first comes after a large number of stress cycles,
microscopic cracks appear at the point of highest stress concentration within the object, and these
grow slowly until a macroscopic crack is formed. Cracks can also form around any surface or other
defects and any internal impurities. The second stage is where this macroscopic crack grows with
every new cycle of applied stress. The crack grows until it reaches a ‘critical size’ at this point the
object is near breaking. The third stage is the fracture, the crack at ‘critical size’ means that the peak
stress of a cycle will cause the crack to cause a fracture of the object. As with the brittle fracture the
final fault is sudden and without warning. There are many factors that can affect fatigue, if the mean
stress applied to the object is higher the cracks will appear sooner and a fault sill come earlier. Any
present defects and impurities will also cause fatigue to happen sooner as the object has already
been weakened and therefore any cracks will have less resistance.

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Unit 7: Properties and Applications of Engineering Materials

The final form of fault is creep, “Creep failure is the time-dependent and permanent deformation of
a material when subjected to a constant load or stress. This deformation typically occurs at elevated
temperatures, although it may occur under ambient temperatures as well.”[ CITATION COR201 \l
2057 ]. Creep is a type of failure that occurs more often in objects that are exposed to increased
temperature and stress levels, such as jet engine turbine rotors. There are three stages of creep
deformation these are; primary creep, secondary creep and tertiary creep. At the start of the
primary creep stage there are very fast dislocations, but as they settle at the grain boundaries the
rate of creep slows, the material work-hardens. A dislocation is where the atoms in the lattice
structure of the material are forced apart along the slip plane. Edge dislocations of the same sign
collect at grain boundaries, edge dislocations of opposite signs attract each other. Secondary creep is
a continuation of work-hardening, but the material also undergoes thermal softening. There is a
constant rate of strain on the material at the given temperature and applied stress. The tertiary
creep, final stage, is where cracks start to appear at grain boundaries as a result of creep, voids
appear within the object. The voids within the structure of the material cause the object to neck
under the applied stress and then the object folds over on itself.

There are many factors that affect creep, the type of material being used has a significant impact.
Different materials have different molecular make-ups, some have tightly packed atoms which
impede the movement of dislocations to the grain boundaries. The more tightly packed the atoms
are within the material, the less likely the material is to have a creep failure. Temperature is another
factor, if you have a lower temperature the material is less likely to have creep failure because the
material undergoes thermal softening at a slower rate.

Task 2: Explain a different process of degradation associated with each of metals,

polymers and ceramics
The degradation process for metal I will explain is
oxidation. “Metal oxidation takes place when an
ionic chemical reaction occurs on a metal's surface
while oxygen is present. Electrons move from the
metal to the oxygen molecules during this process.
Negative oxygen ions then generate and enter the
metal, leading to the creation of an oxide
surface.”[CITATION Rya19 \l 2057 ]. Steel is a prime
example of a metal that is affected by oxidation. It is
not the steel itself that reacts with the oxygen,
instead it is the iron molecules within steel that give Figure 4 [ CITATION Cap21 \l 2057 ]
electrons to oxygen molecules. The iron molecules
on the surface of the steel react with oxygen to become iron oxide molecules, this gives the coloured
look to the metal. The iron oxide molecules on the surface of the metal are loose and fall from the
metal revealing further steel that can be oxidised. Oxidation corrodes steel because the iron
molecules are constantly reacting with oxygen to become iron oxide molecules, these molecules fall
away reducing the profile of the steel. Figure 4 shows steel that has been affected by oxidation, as
can be seen the colour is a dark orange and the surface is peeling away from the rest of the steel.

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Unit 7: Properties and Applications of Engineering Materials

The degradation process for polymers I will explain is photodegradation. “Light - induced polymer
degradation, or photodegradation, includes the physical and chemical changes caused by irradiation
of polymers with ultraviolet or visible light.”[ CITATION Ema13 \l 2057 ]. An example of a polymer
that is susceptible to UV damage is polyethylene. When a polymer is exposed to UV rays the energy
from the rays is great enough to break the bonds between hydrogen and carbon atoms within the
polymer, when a bond is broken a ‘free radical’ is created. New bonds are formed replacing those
broken, but these bonds form across layers of hydrocarbon chains, this is referred to as
embrittlement. As a result of the layers of hydrocarbon chains being unable to slide across each
other, the polymer becomes more brittle, increasing the likelihood of a fault occurring under load.
Photodegradation also causes polymers to become more yellow in appearance, this can be used as a
sign to show that a component or object is becoming more brittle.

The degradation process I will explain for ceramics is thermal shock. “Thermal shock refers to
stresses imposed on a ceramic by the volume changes associated with sudden shifts in
temperature.”[ CITATION Ton17 \l 2057 ]. Ceramics have low thermal conductivity this means that
ceramics take a long time to heat up and cool down, this leads to thermal gradients within the
ceramic whereby the surface could be cool while the centre is still hot. If a ceramic is heated then
rapidly cooled you have a situation where the centre is expanding and the surface is contracting, this
leads to stress cracks appearing. If this process happens continually more cracks can appear, cracks
also grow in size, decreasing the strength of the ceramic. More cracks within the ceramic reduce the
toughness and strength of the ceramic this leads to an increased chance of failure under an applied
load. Ceramics made of quartz crystals have worse thermal shock resistance than other ceramics
because the increase the thermal expansion.

References
CapitalSteel, n.d. WHY DOES STEEL RUST? PLUS OTHER STEEL RUSTING QUESTIONS ANSWERED.
[Online]
Available at: https://www.capitalsteel.net/news/blog/why-does-steel-rust-plus-other-steel-rusting-
questions-answered
[Accessed 03 April 2021].

COMSOL, 2017. Material Fatigue. [Online]

Available at: https://www.comsol.com/multiphysics/material-fatigue#:~:text=Material%20fatigue
%20is%20a%20phenomenon,behind%20failures%20of%20mechanical%20structures.
[Accessed 02 April 2021].

CORROSIONPEDIA, 2020. Creep Failure. [Online]

Available at: https://www.corrosionpedia.com/definition/6175/creep-failure#:~:text=Creep
%20failure%20is%20the%20time,under%20ambient%20temperatures%20as%20well.
[Accessed 02 April 2021].

CORROSIONPEDIA, 2021. Brittle Fracture. [Online]

Available at: https://www.corrosionpedia.com/definition/191/brittle-fracture
[Accessed 02 April 2021].

CORROSIONPEDIA, 2021. Ductile Fracture. [Online]

Available at: https://www.corrosionpedia.com/definition/421/ductile-fracture#:~:text=A%20ductile
%20fracture%20is%20a,compared%20to%20a%20brittle%20fracture.
[Accessed 02 April 2021].

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Unit 7: Properties and Applications of Engineering Materials

Emad Yousif, R. H., 2013. Photodegradation and photostabilization of polymers, especially

polystyrene: review. [Online]
Available at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4320144/#:~:text=Light%20%2D
%20induced%20polymer%20degradation%2C%20or,with%20ultraviolet%20or%20visible
%20light.&text=They%20absorb%20light%20up%20to,excitation%20or%20cleavage%20to
%20radicals.
[Accessed 03 April 2021].

Engineering Archives, 2012. Necking. [Online]

Available at: http://www.engineeringarchives.com/les_mom_necking.html
[Accessed 02 April 2021].

Hansen, T., 2017. Thermal shock. [Online]

Available at: https://digitalfire.com/glossary/thermal+shock#:~:text=Thermal%20shock%20refers
%20to%20stresses,with%20sudden%20shifts%20in%20temperature.&text=Ceramic%20is%20hard
%20and%20resistant,brittle%20and%20propagates%20cracks%20readily.
[Accessed 03 April 2021].

ResearchGate, 2019. MATERIALS SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING. [Online]

Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/a-Cup-and-cone-fracture-in-aluminum-b-Brittle-
fracture-in-mild-steel_fig48_334465619
[Accessed 02 April 2021].

Wikimedia Commons, 2008. File:Ductile fracture upd.png. [Online]

Available at: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ductile_fracture_upd.png
[Accessed 02 April 2021].

Wojes, R., 2020. The Meaning of Oxidized Metal. [Online]

Available at: https://www.thoughtco.com/what-is-the-definition-of-oxidized-metal-
2340018#:~:text=Metal%20oxidation%20takes%20place%20when,creation%20of%20an%20oxide
%20surface.
[Accessed 03 April 2021].

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