FAILURE MECHANISM

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 Failure in material

Different reasons of failures

 Uncertainties in the loading or environment
 Defects in the materials
 Inadequacies in design
 Deficiencies in construction or maintenance

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 Different modes of Failure​
Failure of a material component is the loss of ability to function normally or to
perform the intended job.
Different ways of failure:
1. Excessive elastic deformation: Controlled by design and elastic modulus
of the material. e.g. : buckling.
2. Excessive plastic deformation: Controlled by yield strength of the material
e.g. : loss of shape, creep and / or stress – rupture at elevated temperatures.
3. Fracture: It involves complete disruption of continuity of a component–
under static load : brittle or ductile,
4. Fatigue: This mode in which most machine parts fail in service under
fluctuating / cyclic load.

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 Fracture

 The strength of structural metals – particularly steel – can be increased to

very high levels by manipulating the microstructure to inhibit dislocation
motion.
 This renders the material increasingly brittle, so that cracks can form and
propagate catastrophically with very little warning.
 Many engineering failures are happening due to this phenomenon.
 So structural design engineers needs to ensure the
procedures to protect against brittle fracture.

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 Fracture
Fracture is defined as the separation or fragmentation of a solid body into two
or more parts under the action of stress.
Fracture is classified based on several characteristic features:

Characteristic Terms used

Strain to fracture Ductile Brittle
Crystallographic
Shear Cleavage
mode
Appearance Fibrous Granular and bright
Along the grain
Crack propagation Through grains
boundaries
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 Fracture

Ductile and Brittle are relative

terms.

Most of the fractures belong to

one of the following modes :
 Highly Ductile
 Moderately ductile
 Brittle fracture

Three profiles of fracture (A) Highly Ductile;

(B) Moderately ductile; (C) Brittle fracture
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Ductile fracture Vs Brittle fracture

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Ref: Ashby et a.. Acta
Metallurgica 27 (1979)
699-729

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Griffith’s theory of brittle fracture

Separate PDF file is attached.

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 Dislocation theory of brittle fracture
The process of brittle fracture consist of three stages:
1. Plastic deformation which involves the pileup of dislocation along
their slip plane at an obstacle.
2. the buildup of shear stress at the head of pile up to nucleate a
microcrack.
3. in some cases the stored elastic strain energy drives microcrack to
complete fracture without further dislocation movement in the pile
up.
More typically in metals, a distinct growth stage is observed in which
an increase in stress is required to propagate the microcrack. Thus, the
fracture stress is the stress required to propagate the microcracks

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Dislocation theory of brittle fracture

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 Notch effect

The changes produced by the introduction of notch have important consequences

in the fracture process. For example, the presence of notch will increase
appreciably ductile brittle transition temperature of a steel. Notch creates a local
stress peaks at the root of notch.
Notch increases the tendency of brittle fracture in four important ways:
1. by introducing high local stresses.
2. by introducing Triaxial tensile state of stress.
3. By producing high local strain hardening and cracking.
4. by producing a local magnification to the strain rate.

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 Ductile Fracture
 Ductile fracture in tension occurs after appreciable plastic deformation.
 It is usually preceded by necking.
It exhibits three stages-
i. formation of cavities
ii. growth of cavities
iii. final failure involving rapid crack propagation at about 45o to the
tensile axis.
 The large energy absorbed before ductile fracture.
 Fractography of ductile fracture reveals numerous spherical dimples
separated by thin walls on the fractured surface.

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Ductile Fracture

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 Ductile and Brittle Fracture
Stress strain curve showing brittle and tensile
failure showcasing large energy absorbed
before ductile fracture while less energy
absorbed before brittle fracture

Fig: Actual photographs of

Ductile fracture and brittle fracture

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 Brittle Fracture
 Brittle fracture in takes place with little or no preceding plastic deformation.
 It occurs, often at unpredictable levels of stress, by rapid crack propagation.
 Crack propagates nearly perpendicular to the direction of applied tensile
stress, and hence called cleavage fracture.
 Most often brittle fracture occurs through grains i.e. Transgranular.
Three stages of brittle fracture-
(i) Plastic deformation that causes dislocation pile-ups at obstacles.
(ii) Micro-crack nucleation as a result of build-up of shear stresses.
(iii) Eventual crack propagation under applied stress aided by stored
elastic energy.

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Brittle Fracture

Failure of Titanic

Failure of Liberty commercial ship during world war II

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 Notch effect on Fracture
 A material’s sensitivity to different kinds of fracture is measured using notched
specimen subjected to impact load. Further study involves examining the
fracture surfaces.
 Two kind of specimen configurations & loading directions are using during
impact testing as shown below.
 Large energy absorbed by ductile specimen before fracture while less energy
absorbed by brittle specimen before fracture.

https://www.centexbel.be/en/testing/charpy-izod-impact-tests
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 Effect of variables on rupture in impact test
Velocity: The maximum velocity of striker of impact test machine should be less than
the critical velocity of material to be tested.
Specimen: Standard specimen show ductile fracture , while at low temperature
specimen show brittle fracture.
Notch Effect: As sharpness of notch increases the energy of rupture decreases.
Temperature: Ductile to brittle transition depends on temperature.

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 Ductile to Brittle transition (DBT)

 The ductile to brittle transition (DBT) is related to temperature

dependence of measured impact energy absorption.

 As the temperature lowered, the impact energy drops suddenly over

relatively narrow temperature range, below which energy has constant
but small value. i.e. Mode of fracture is brittle

 Transition of ductile to brittle takes place at the certain temperature

which is known as ductile to brittle transition temperature.

 Impact Energy = Energy absorbed during fracture

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Ductile to Brittle transition (DBT)

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 Fatigue failure
 It is observed that materials subjected to dynamic /repetitive/ fluctuating load
(stress) fail at a stress much lower than that required to cause fracture in a single
application of a load.
 Structures subjected to repeated cyclic loadings can undergo progressive
damage which takes place due to propagation of cracks. This damage is called
fatigue
 It is estimated that fatigue accounts for ~90% of all service failures due to
mechanical causes. Corrosion being the other major cause of failures.
 Usually, fatigue failures occur after considerable time of service.
 The physical effect of a repeated load on a material is different from the static
load.
 Failure always being brittle fracture regardless of whether the material is brittle
or ductile.
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 Fatigue failure
 Fatigue failure is usually initiated at a site of stress concentration (e.g. a notch in
the specimen or at crack site or at site of foreign inclusion).
 In general fatigue is the human reaction of ‘tiredness’ due to repetitive work.
 Fatigue testing is often conducted in bending or torsion mode
 If the stress have a origin in thermal cycling, then the fatigue is called thermal
fatigue.
Three factors play an important role in fatigue failure:
(i) value of tensile stress (maximum)
(ii) magnitude of variation in stress
(iii) number of cycles
 Fatigue also depends on their geometry and microstructure of the component.
 Fatigue life also depends on stress concentrators and residual stress in the
material.
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Types of Cyclic Stresses

max and min are maximum and

minimum stresses, while m and
a are called mean stress and
stress amplitude respectively.
m = 1/2 (max + min )
a = 1/2 (max - min )

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Types of Cyclic Stresses

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 Fatigue testing
Fatigue or endurance limit of a material is defined as the maximum amplitude of
completely reversed stress that the standard specimen can sustain for an
unlimited number of cycles without fatigue failure.
The results of these tests are plotted by means of an S–N curve.
The S–N curve is the graphical representation of stress amplitude (Sf ) versus the
number of stress cycles (N) before the fatigue failure on a log-log graph paper.

The fatigue life is defined as the number of stress cycles that the standard
specimen can complete during the test before the appearance of the first fatigue
crack.

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Fatigue testing

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S – N curve

For ferrous materials like steels, the

S–N curve becomes at 106 cycles,
indicates the stress amplitude
corresponding to infinite number of
stress cycles. The magnitude of this
stress amplitude at 106 cycles
represents the endurance limit of the
material.
Stress amplitude below Fatigue
limit give ‘infinite life’

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S – N curve

 Steel, Ti show fatigue limit

 Al, Mg, Cu show no fatigue
limit

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 Factors Influencing Fatigue
1.Loading
Nature and type of loading: -Axial tension, bending, torsion and combined
loading-Mean and Variable components in case of Repeated, Fluctuating
and Alternating loading and Frequency of loading and rest periods.
2. Geometry
Size effects and stress concentration.
3.Material
Composition, structure, directional properties and notch sensitivity.
4. Manufacturing
Surface finish, heat treatment, residual stresses.
5.Environment
Corrosion, high temperature, radiation. 30