Hilary Lin

215040470

Computer Engineering: Homework Assignment 5

1.1 Ductile fracture: a crack that develops on a specimen when a stress that is applied exceeds the
ultimate tensile strength for a large amount of time, occurring after extensive plastic
deformation.

Eg. When a rear axel shaft of a vehicle has a lower hardness level than required, the torsion forces
cause plastic deformation, which would cause ductile fracture of the axel.

1.2 Brittle fracture: cracks that propagate across a matrix of grains with very little plastic
deformation occurring, due to a sheer stress build up and create microcracks through the
material.

Eg. The Silver Bridge in West Virginia collapsed in 1967 due to H2S exposure from a nearby papermill
corroding its supports, reducing the ability of the supports to prolong the ductile fracture, causing it
to crack with a little plastic deformation.

2 Toughness: the amount of energy (load) a material can absorb before fracture.
3 Fatigue strength: the range of cyclic stresses that a material can withstand before fatigue failure
occurs. This is an important property within the coastal part of Durban as the salty water vapour
from the sea causes corrosion to occur faster than it would inland (due to chemical processes
between the salty water and the metal), causing cracks and a decrease in cross-sectional area to
develop far quicker on materials with a lower fatigue strength, causing fatigue failure to occur
more quickly, known as corrosion fatigue. Therefore, the material needs to be treated to
withstand corrosion.
4.1 Beach marks: the pattern of parallel, straight or curved lines that form on a material as a result
of a load. The position of the cracks depend on where the load is applied, and thus different
loads cause different cracks to form.
4.2 Beach marks are visible to the naked eye. Fatigue striations can only be seen through an electron
microscope.
5 Fully reversed cyclic loading: when a material is subjected to cyclic loads in opposite directions,
i.e. a part that usually experiences tension experiences compression and a part that usually
experiences compression experiences tension.
6 Creep rupture: a continuous load that causes deformation (creep) which leads to the fracture of
the material.

7 Fretting corrosion: the corrosive damage that occurs because of repetitive motion between two
surfaces that are in contact with each other. Eg. Gears rotating in one another.
8 Erosion (wear): the loss of material from a surface because of impact with another object or
mechanical interaction with fluid or solid particles. Eg. Wind removing sand layer by layer in a
desert, decreasing the height of the sand.

References

Smith W. F., Hashemi J., Foundations of Material Science and Engineering, Edition 5, 2011

The Collapse of the Silver Bridge: NBS Determines Cause, author unknown, found at
http://museum.nist.gov/exhibits/silverbridge/, created on July 8, 2009, last accessed October 7, 2015
at 10:56 PM