Int J Fract (2021) 231:147–167
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10704-021-00570-7
ORIGINAL PAPER
A low constraint center cracked Brazilian disk specimen for
ductile FCC single crystal
Nipal Deka · Krishna N. Jonnalagadda
Received: 10 February 2021 / Accepted: 28 June 2021 / Published online: 13 July 2021
© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature B.V. 2021
Abstract In this work, the center cracked Brazilian
disk (BD) geometry is proposed as a possible small-
scale low crack tip constraint fracture specimen for duc-
tile FCC single crystals. These low crack tip constraint
conditions are frequently encountered where shallow
cracks are present. The effect of in-plane and out-of-
plane crack tip constraint on crack tip fields in a Brazil-
ian disk geometry was analyzed for an aluminum single
crystal. A simple stress difference method is proposed
to evaluate the in-plane crack tip constraint, T -stress for
any anisotropic FCC crystal. The magnitude of T -stress
for the center cracked BD specimen was calculated to
be much lower than that in other standard fracture spec-
imens. Besides, the energy release rate, J -integral was
also evaluated for this specimen using the domain inte-
gral method. Results obtained from the full 3D crystal
plasticity finite element analysis agreed well with pre-
viously reported modified boundary layer analysis with
negative crack tip constraint. The study primarily con-
sidered the specific crack orientation, {010} 101. Two
other crack orientations were also studied to analyze the
different nature of strain localization in ductile single
crystal. The forward localization band was observed to
be significantly dominant over the other possible local-
ization bands for all the crack orientations. However,
N. Deka · K. N. Jonnalagadda (B)
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of
Technology Bombay, Mumbai 400076, India
e-mail: krishnajn@iitb.ac.in
N. Deka
e-mail: nipaldeka1@gmail.com
the nature of localization varied from slip to kink in
the forward band depending on the crack orientation.
Under mixed mode I–II loading, localization bands not
aligned with slip directions were observed with high
local lattice rotation, suggesting possible existence of
kink shear bands. Additionally, some important speci-
men details are reported, which would help in design-
ing the small scale experiment on ductile single crystal,
to measure crack tip constraint, and fracture toughness
under low constraint condition.
Keywords Brazilian disk · Crack tip constraint ·
T -stress · Single crystal · Crystal plasticity
1 Introduction
Single crystals are extensively being used in applica-
tions, such as, turbine blades in fuel pump assemblies,
due to their excellent creep resistance under extreme
temperatures. To employ single crystal materials in
engineering applications, it is essential to understand
their fracture behavior. In ductile single crystals, strain
localization, in the form of a shear band, is closely asso-
ciated with the slip system behavior. Previously, it was
shown that the number, orientation, size and shape of
these bands were highly dependent on the level of crack
tip constraint (Patil et al. 2008a; Deka and Jonnala-
gadda 2017). The crack tip constraint is the resistance
offered by the specimen geometry to plastic deforma-
tion in the vicinity of a crack tip. It is categorized into
123
148
in-plane and out-of-plane constraints. The length of
un-cracked ligament controls the in-plane constraint,
while the specimen thickness decides the out-of-plane
constraint. It has been observed that in engineering
structures, both in-plane and out-of-plane constraints
frequently coexist (Wang et al. 2020). The constraint
level in a fracture specimen is sensitive to many fac-
tors like dimensions of the specimen, crack geome-
try, loading mode, etc. For example, standard fracture
specimens like deeply cracked single edge notched ten-
sile (SENT), single edge notched bend (SENB), and
compact tension (CT) are high constraint geometries.
Whereas, the shallow cracked SENT, SENB, and the
middle-cracked tension (MT) are comparatively low
constraint geometries (Moon et al 2017; Kang et al.
2018; Yang 2018).
In practice, the fracture toughness is measured
through fracture toughness tests on a deeply cracked
specimen. These tests usually require that the plane
strain condition is fulfilled, and avoid free surface
effects in a finite geometry, and also assure the high lev-
els of constraint near the crack tip. On the other hand,
flaws in some structural components in service, such
as, at the welded joints (Moon et al 2017), in single-
crystal silicon electrodes (Shi et al. 2016), in garnet
single crystals during substrate machining (Pardavi-
Horvath 1984), are typically shallow cracks, which dis-
play very low levels of constraint near the crack tip. So,
the routine procedure of using the fracture toughness
values, calculated with high constraint fracture spec-
imens, to evaluate the structural integrity of low con-
straint physical components would be conservative, and
would involve redundant maintenance cost and time
(Moon et al 2017; Kang et al. 2018). In addition, it
is well understood that critical fracture toughness and
plastic shear localization are sensitive to negative T -
stress. Importantly, in the case of single crystal, the
correct level of constraint of the fracture specimen is
even more crucial due to the highly influential nature of
constraint on strain localization. Therefore, the assess-
ment of the fracture toughness obtained from a labora-
tory specimen to match that of an actual cracked struc-
tural component of single crystal, becomes an impor-
tant concern.
In order to provide more accurate characterization
of the crack tip fields, the laboratory specimen must
match the constraint level of the structure at failure,
in order for the respective fracture toughness values
to be similar. The in-plane crack tip constraint can
123
N. Deka, K. N. Jonnalagadda
be expressed by the non-singular term, T -stress in the
Williams (1957)’s series solution of elastic stress field.
As already mentioned, the flaw sizes are small in real
applications, so a very low constraint (high negative
T -stress value) fracture specimen would only repli-
cate the same level of constraint as that of the flawed
component. Previous studies conducted by (Crone and
Shield 2001, 2003; Flouriot et al. 2003; Arakere et al.
2009; Sabnis et al. 2012) considered high constraint
geometries like CT, four point bend or double-notched
tensile specimens of single crystals. Recently, Patil
et al. (2008b) analyzed the crack tip fields in a low
constraint single edge notched Al single crystal sam-
ple. The strain localization and stress distribution in
SENT samples showed good agreement with the cases
of low constraint situations of 2D boundary layer sim-
ulations (Patil et al. 2008a). However, the fields were
observed to be sensitive to the thickness of the sam-
ple. So, any measurement of fracture properties from
the field quantities made on the free surfaces would not
be consistent through the bulk of the sample. Again,
Patil et al. (2008a) did not consider estimation of crack
tip constraint or any fracture properties for the SENT
sample of Al single crystal. Another important aspect
of modeling single crystalline material behavior is the
choice of hardening model, which has great effect on
the extent and spread of shear localized region. In Patil
et al. (2008a), isotropic hardening model (PAN) was
considered to simulate the hardening behavior, which
has limitations to capture multiple slip activity (triple
slip), and does not consider differences in slip interac-
tions (Deka and Jonnalagadda 2019). In addition, load-
ing conditions in practice are very often mixed mode
type, and need specific sample preparation in terms of
the inclination angle of the crack with respect of the
loading direction, to achieve a particular level of mode
mixity. Hence, there is a need for a suitable single crys-
tal small scale fracture specimen, which exhibits very
low constraint (high negative T -stress) level, and tack-
les the other issues discussed above.
Traditionally, the Brazilian disk (BD) test (Carneiro
1943; Markides et al. 2013) is a method used to evaluate
the tensile strength of brittle materials. The idea of the
test is to induce tensile failure at the center of the disk by
applying a compressive load along its diameter. Brazil-
ian disk has a number of advantages, viz. simpler speci-
men preparation, higher failure load, and easier testing
procedure over other available geometries. This disk
geometry also has the advantage of mixed mode frac-
A low constraint center cracked Brazilian disk specimen...
ture loading with the same sample preparation in terms
of crack orientation with respect to the disk. Impor-
tantly, in comparison to other fracture specimens, the
disk specimen with a center crack possesses a very
low constraint level (high negative T -stress value) (Fett
2001; Hua et al. 2015), which can successfully match
the low constraint level of the shallow cracked com-
ponents. The normalized magnitude of T -stress in BD
is almost one order less in comparison to SENT sam-
ple in the case of isotropic metals (Fett 1998, 2001).
In the current work, a method to compute the magni-
tude of T -stress for an anisotropic material is provided,
which will help to evaluate this BD geometry as a can-
didate for low constraint geometry for ductile single
crystals. Moreover, due to the high negative constraint
nature, BD specimen would also provide a less con-
servative measure of fracture toughness in comparison
to other conventional specimens. As, there is utility of
a suitable test specimen, whose constraint level would
acceptably match that of the actual flawed components
with a shallow crack, Brazilian disk with a center crack
can be positively employed. So, for the potential use
of the Brazilian disk test for ductile single crystal, it
is beneficial to study and analyze its crack tip strain
localization behavior.
The current work aims to analyze the crack tip strain
localization behavior in an Al single crystal Brazilian
disk specimen with the intention to propose this geom-
etry with high negative T -stress for fracture experi-
ments. The Bassani-Wu hardening model (Bassani and
Wu 1991) was utilized to simulate the hardening behav-
ior of Al single crystal, which has the ability to capture
multiple slip activities by incorporating different pos-
sible slip system interactions. The primary focus has
been to utilize the full-field surface quantities in order to
evaluate the crack tip constraint (in terms of T -stress),
and fracture properties for the BD geometry, which
would also incorporate the influence of strain localiza-
tion in their measurements. A simple stress difference
method (SDM) is proposed to evaluate the T -stress for
an anisotropic FCC ductile crystal. In addition, a mea-
sure of energy release rate, J -integral was also calcu-
lated for this sample. Additionally, the strain localiza-
tion pattern under mixed mode loading was also inves-
tigated by utilizing the advantage of this disk geometry
in the context of a ductile single crystal. Some useful
details on the design of the experiment are provided in
Results and Discussion section.
149
2 Numerical model: Brazilian disk (BD) test
specimen
Many trial simulations were carried out with differ-
ent combinations of the crack length to radius of the
disk ratios, (a/R) along with various crack lengths (2a)
to finalize the geometry, and load requirement for the
Brazilian disk experiment (see Appendix A1). In these
simulations, attention was given to ensure that the crack
tip plastic zone did not interfere with the plastic defor-
mation fields resulting from the contact area under the
load on the periphery of the specimen, and also, to
achieve a desired level of negative T -stress. The crack
length to disk radius ratio, or, the relative crack length,
α = a/R, was chosen to be 0.1 with the total crack
length, 2a = 2.4 mm, which possesses a very high neg-
ative T -stress1 . The radius of the disk was kept constant
at 12 mm and thickness of the disk to be 2 mm in all
the simulations except Sect. 3.1.8. The thickness of the
sample was intentionally chosen after a few trial simu-
lations so that field solutions do not vary much across
the thickness direction. This will potentially assist in
measuring the surface deformation in an experiment,
and then quantify strain localization behavior through-
out the sample. It is to be noted that this choice of thick-
ness is specific to Al single crystal with this particular
crack geometry under study. However, a comparison
is provided in Sect. 3.1.8 showing the effect of thick-
ness of the BD sample. The root diameter of the central
notch was 0.1 mm, which is in general limited by the
machining capability.
The finite element study was carried out using eight
noded linear brick elements (C3D8R), and a detailed
view of the FE mesh is shown in Fig. 1. In the analy-
sis, the disk was supported by a frictionless platen, and
was loaded by moving the upper platen in the down-
ward direction in order to simulate the real conditions
to be used in experiments as opposed to point loads.
A “surface-to-surface contact” interaction scheme was
used in the current work. The contact surface of the
moving plate was modelled as “master surface” while
the contact surface of the disk was modelled as “slave
surface”. A finer mesh was used in the region of contact
of the disk. The surfaces in contact was allowed to slide
1 For the relative crack length, α = 0.1, it is reported that the nor-
malized T -stress (normalized with maximum tensile stress at the
center of the disk) for mode I central crack in BD, under diame-
tral compressive point loading is about T ∗ = −3 for isotropic,
homogeneous materials (Fett 2001; Hua et al. 2015).
123
150 N. Deka, K. N. Jonnalagadda

Fig. 1 FE mesh used in

Brazilian disk simulation of
aluminum single crystal. FE
mesh was gradually made
finer near to the crack for
better resolution.
Orientation of the crack was
{010} 101

freely without friction. In addition “Hard” contact was
used to enforce constraints using the default contact
pressure-overclosure relationship in ABAQUS (2011).
Besides, separation after contact was also allowed. In
these simulations, the specimen was loaded to a fixed
load point displacement (LPD) by moving the upper
platen at a constant rate to obtain a suitable value of
LPD for the experiments. The value of the LPD = 0.2
mm was chosen such that the deformation fields gen-
erated at the contact of the loading platen and the spec-
imen do not interfere with the crack tip deformation
field. For different materials, by changing the a/R ratio,
it is possible to design the specimen for the initiation
of crack propagation for a given LPD.
Here, it is to be noted that though the outer dimen-
sions of the disk are of the order of mm, the notch diam-
eter, the applied LPD are of the order of few microns.
Also, the magnitudes of various crack tip quantities are
expected to be of the order of a few microns as will be
discussed in the subsequent sections. Since the main
motivation of this study is to measure various impor-
tant quantities near the crack tip, which are of small
length scale, hence, the term “small-scale” was used in
this work.
Implementing the constitutive model as described in
Appendix A2, a user material (UMAT) subroutine was
developed, and numerical analysis was performed. In
this work, the role of plastic strain gradients was not
included. The effect of slip gradient on the crack tip
fields are confined to a region very near to the crack
tip, generally less than 10 µm (Jiang et al. 2001; Chen
and Wang 2002; Song et al. 2004). Hence, for a blunt
crack or notch, which is the case here, the gradient
effect is quite negligible especially at a distance where
measurements of the field quantities are made in an
experiment. Material and hardening parameters used
in the analysis are summarized in Tables 1 and 2. A
stationary crack on {010} plane and prospective crack
growth in 101 direction was primarily considered in
the current study. In this work, notation {•} will be
used to refer the crack plane, and • will refer the
crack direction. In addition, two more crack orienta-
tions {101} 010 and {010} 100 were also analyzed
to compare the crack tip strain localization in the BD
Table 1 Viscoplastic parameters used in the CPFE simulation
for Al single crystal (Lu et al. 2011)
γ̇0 m h0 hs τ1 τ0 λ0 q
0.001 s −1 0.02 30 MPa 0.01 MPa 6.3 MPa 6 MPa 0.001 1
Table 2 Elastic parameters for Al single crystal
2C44
C11 C12 C44 Z= (C11 −C12 )
108.2 GPa 61.3 GPa 28.5GPa 1.2

123
A low constraint center cracked Brazilian disk specimen...
Fig. 2 Traces of slip planes projected onto X 1 − X 2 plane for
FCC. The three effective in-plane slip systems, Si=1,2,3 orient at
about 1250 , 550 , and 00 , respectively to the crack propagation
direction (Rice 1987)
specimen as discussed in Sect. 3.1.9 . Previously, these
orientations were studied with single crystal nickel-
base superalloy (FCC) CT (Flouriot et al. 2003) and
double edged tensile (Arakere et al. 2009; Sabnis et al.
2012) specimens. For the crack geometry, {010} 101,
only three pairs of slip systems are active to maintain
plane strain deformation in FCC single  crystal (Rice
 
1987). The slip systems {111} 11̄0 and {111} 01̄1
together produce effective in-plane slip along 12̄1
direction, S1 . Similarly, {11̄1} 110 and {11̄1} 011
result to effective in-plane slip along 121 direction,
S2 . Finally, {111̄} 101 and {1̄11} 101 cause effective
in-plane strain deformation along 101 orientation, S3
(Fig. 2).
Bassani and Wu (1991) model as described in
Appendix A2 was utilized for Al single crystal, and
full 3D analysis was carried out. Bassani-Wu hard-
ening model accommodates different possible slip
interactions, and has the ability to capture multi-
ple slip activities like triple slip (Deka and Jonnala-
gadda 2019), which the isotropic hardening model
lacks. The center cracked Brazilian disk specimen
exhibits very high negative T -stress, which causes sig-
nificant loss of triaxiality at the crack tip. So, how
this loss of constraint affects the deformation fields
near the crack tip are primarily studied in the cur-
rent work, and results are presented in the following
section. Again, one of the benefits of these simula-
tions is that these results would help in selecting the
experimental loading conditions for performing the
experiments.
151
3 Results and discussion
3.1 Mode I loading
3.1.1 Displacement fields near the crack tip and crack
tip opening displacement (CTOD)
Displacement components calculated on one of the free
surfaces of the disk are plotted in this section. Here, u 1
is along the direction of the loading platen and u 2 is
along the crack opening direction. At the point of the
maximum LPD, the maximum magnitude of u 1 compo-
nent was about 0.2 mm, while, u 2 component reached
a maximum of 0.065 mm. In the simulation, the top
platen was moving downwards, while the bottom one
was kept fixed. Therefore, the displacement fields did
not show symmetry about the X 2 axis, but they were
symmetric about the X 1 axis.
The crack tip opening displacement (CTOD) was
also calculated from u 2 component according to Eq. 1
following the procedure as illustrated in Fig. 4.
C T O D = u+ −
2 − u2 (1)
The value of CTOD at LPD=0.2 mm was calculated
to be 0.023 mm for the top crack tip. An important
observation is that the CTOD continuously increased
with LPD, and no unloading at the crack tip due to plas-
ticity at contact regions was observed. Thus, it fulfills
the requirement of a monotonic loading near the crack
tip for fracture toughness measurement.
3.1.2 Plastic strain localization
Fringe contour plots
 of maximum principal logarithmic
p
plastic strain, log λ1 at one of the free surfaces and
at the mid surface are shown in Fig. 5. The analytical
results of Rice (1987) predicted sharp plastic localiza-
tion bands appearing at 54.70 , 900 and 125.30 from
the crack propagation direction in non-hardening FCC
single crystal for the crack geometry as considered in
this analysis. However, the analytical solution did not
consider any constraint effect. In the BD configuration,
the slip bands oriented at 550 (angle is measured from
the crack front) on either side of the notch line were
observed in the plastic strain fields. This is similar to
the observation from the modified boundary layer sim-
ulations (MBL) for negative T -stress case (Deka and
Jonnalagadda 2017), but more pronounced. The spread
123
152
Fig. 3 Fringe contour plots
of displacement fields on
the free surface, u 1 is along
the loading direction, and
u 2 is along the crack
opening direction
Fig. 4 Crack tip opening displacement (C T O D = u +
2 − u2 )
measured from the u 2 displacement component. Monotonic
increase of CTOD confirms that there was no unloading at the
crack tip due to plasticity at the contact of the loading platen and
the disk
of these plastic regions depends on the plastic strain
hardening of the single crystal, which for the Al sin-
gle crystal chosen here was very low (see Appendix
A2). Also, there was no contribution from the other
two shear bands in the plastic strain distribution. Both
the crack tips (top and bottom) displayed very similar
plastic strain localization signature. In addition, the dis-
tribution of plastic strain fields at the free surface and
the middle plane revealed no variation across the thick-
ness direction (for this particular configuration of the
BD specimen) as observed in Fig. 5c. This will work as
an advantage during the test, where, the surface mea-
surements can be used to determine the localization and
spread of plastic deformation through the thickness of
the sample. In single crystals, the crack tip strain local-
ization is highly sensitive to constraint level, so the
measurements done on the surfaces during a test may
not be consistent through the thickness based on the
123
N. Deka, K. N. Jonnalagadda
variation of the constraint across the thickness. For this
particular configuration of BD, it was observed that the
variation of T -stress with the thickness of the sample
was not significant (as displayed later in Sect. 3.1.7).
Hence, the plastic fields were seen to be less affected
by the variation of constraint across the thickness direc-
tion. Besides, the slight asymmetry in the plastic strain
fields as seen in Fig. 5 is because of the rotation of
the crystal due to elastic anisotropy in the out-of-plane
direction.
3.1.3 Total Lagrange strain components
−
The Lagrange strain components are of interest as they
can be directly compared with the experimental mea-
surements on a surface of the specimen. Hence, the
total Lagrange strain components on the free surface
were calculated and presented in Fig. 6. For all the
three in-plane components, noticeable discontinuity
was observed at 550 angular position. The 22 com-
ponent exhibited a positive value along the shear slip
band, while the other two components displayed nega-
tive magnitudes along that band. Here also, there was
no major variation of the strain components across the
thickness for this BD specimen. These observations
would again emphasize the point that any measure-
ment of strain components during the actual experiment
would be consistent throughout the thickness direc-
tion. In Fig. 6b, the trajectory of strain paths traversing
around the crack tip (only one half of the circular disk,
i.e., θ = 00 − 1800 ) are presented at r = 0.3 mm. As
the elastic part of these total Lagrange strain compo-
nents are negligible, so, they can be treated as plastic
strain components. Again, the strain paths around the
crack tip on the free surface and on the mid surface
reveal very small differences as can be seen in Fig. 6b.
A low constraint center cracked Brazilian disk specimen...
(a) (b)
(c)
 p
Fig. 5 Maximum principal logarithmic plastic strain, log λ1 at
a free and b mid-surface showing the dominance of the forward
band inclining at 550 to the crack propagation direction, c angular
p 3.1.5 Kirchoff stress field
variation of log λ1 near the crack tip shows negligible influence
of the thickness of the sample on the plastic strain localization
under mode I loading
(a)
Fig. 6 a Lagrange strain components near the crack on free and
mid surfaces. All the strain components showed dominance of
the slip band located at about 550 . The 11 and 12 components
exhibited negative strain while 22 showed positive magnitude
of strain localization along the slip band, b strain trajectories
153
3.1.4 Lattice rotation in the crystal
In single crystals, the extent of lattice distortion due to
slip is revealed by the local lattice rotation. This angle,
φ, was calculated according to Morawiec (2004), and in
Fig. 7, its angular variation around the crack tip is plot-
ted. At about 550 angular location, a noticeable lattice
rotation band was observed both on the free and mid
surfaces. However, the magnitude of the lattice rota-
tion measured for the BD specimen was very small. As
high lattice rotation is closely related to the formation
of a kink band (Rice 1987; Kysar and Briant 2002), for
the BD specimen it is expected that the kink band will
not be observed for this crack orientation. A detailed
description on formation of a kink band and its relation
with lattice rotation is available in (Rice 1987; Kysar
and Briant 2002).The ability to form a kink band would
decide whether the crack would be shielded or not,
and will affect the brittleness and ductility of a mate-
rial (Rice and Nikolic 1985; Kysar and Briant 2002).
Again, very minimal difference of angular variation of
lattice rotation between the free and mid surfaces were
observed, which is consistent with the observation of
plastic strain localization reported above.
The normalized Kirchoff stresses ττ110 , ττ220 , ττ120 , and their
angular variation at r = 0.3 mm from the notch center
are presented in Fig. 8. Similar to the plots of Kir-
choff stress components in the MBL simulation (Deka
(b)
around the crack tip on the free surface and on the mid surface
revealed very small differences, the 550 angular position is also
highlighted, where a sharp corner was observed on these strain
trajectories
123
154
Fig. 7 a Lattice rotation (in
degree) in the Al single
crystal. The small
magnitude of the lattice
rotation suggests the
absence of any kink band, b
angular variation near the
crack tip also revealed
minor influence of the
thickness of the sample on
the lattice rotation
(a)
and Jonnalagadda 2017), here also, we observed three
distinct constant stress regions near the crack tip as
visible in the angular variations of ττ110 and ττ220 . How-
ever, for this BD configuration, the magnitudes of these
stress components were small. Moreover, ττ110 showed
high negative values near the crack surfaces. In addi-
tion, negative T -stress causes loss of constraint near
the crack tip. This loss of triaxiallity due to negative T -
stress would delay cleavage fracture, and also, ductile
void coalescence (Patil et al. 2008b). Earlier, numeri-
cal results (Patil et al. 2008a; Deka and Jonnalagadda
2017) obtained with isotropic hardening model for neg-
ative constraint situation showed that the stress tra-
jectory entered the elastic region after some traverse
along the yield surface. However, in the current study,
weakly coupled Bassani-Wu hardening model was used
with the consideration of latent hardening. In Fig. 8b,
the stress trajectories are presented at r = 0.3 mm.
Here, a highly distorted stress path was observed for
this low constraint BD specimen. Similar trend was
noticed in the MBL simulations for negative T -stress
(Deka and Jonnalagadda 2019) with Bassani-Wu hard-
ening model.
3.1.6 Calculation of J -integral
The fracture toughness of a single crystal can be eval-
uated with appropriate fracture mechanics parameters
utilizing the J -integral. In this work, the J -integral was
evaluated by employing the domain integral method in
the FE solver, ABAQUS/ Standard (ABAQUS 2011).
The major region around the crack tip, which included
the plastic activity was omitted from the calculation
of J as shown in Fig. 9a. To ensure the path inde-
pendence of J -integral, the domain was chosen in the
123
N. Deka, K. N. Jonnalagadda
(b)
elastic region, which encloses the plastic zones along
a path including the notch free surfaces (Sumpter and
Turner 1976; Carka and Landis 2010). It is to be noted
that similar procedure of computing the J -integral for
other low constraint geometries like SENB, SENT, etc.,
cannot be employed owing to small ligament lengths.
The variation of J with LPD is presented in Fig. 9b.
The magnitude of J -integral for Al single crystal with
the BD specimen at LPD = 0.2 mm was calculated
to be 0.265 N/mm after attaining the saturated value
of it at 5th contour using the domain integral method
(ABAQUS 2011). The magnitude of J -integral just at
the point of crack initiation, in an experiment, could
be considered as the critical energy release rate or the
fracture toughness. Again, the variation of J -integral
with the thickness of the sample is plotted in Fig. 9c.
The variation of J -integral through the thickness of the
sample was negligible, with slightly lesser magnitude
on the mid plane of the sample compared to that on
the free surfaces. So, any evaluation of J -integral from
the strain components obtained on the free surface of
this BD sample during the experiment would be invari-
ant throughout the thickness also. In this calculation,
a key issue is the selection or availability of an elastic
region around the plastic strain fields in the specimen
for the calculation of J -integral. So, from specimen
design point of view, the selection of crack length and
LPD become crucial for the calculation of J -integral
using an elastic domain.
3.1.7 Evaluation of T -stress for the BD geometry with
Al single crystal
To calculate the T -stress for given dimensions of a cen-
ter cracked BD geometry of an anisotropic crystal, the
A low constraint center cracked Brazilian disk specimen...
(a)
Fig. 8 a Angular variations of Kirchoff stress τ11 , τ22 , and
τ12 displaying three constant stress regions. Small magnitudes
of stresses were observed for the low constraint BD geometry,
which were similar to those obtained in the MBL simulations car-
ried out with negative T -stress (Deka and Jonnalagadda 2017,
(a)
(c)
Fig. 9 a Domain used in the calculation of J -integral omitting
the region around the crack tip, which included the plastic activ-
ity, b variation of J with LPD for Al single crystal with the BD
specimen. Magnitude of J -integral at LPD = 0.2 mm was cal-
155
(b)
2019), and b stress trajectory in stress plane near the crack tip,
indicating start, end (), and angular locations of 550 , 900 , and
1250 corresponding to shear bands identified by Rice (1987). A
highly distorted stress path was observed for this BD specimen
(b)
culated to be 0.265 N/mm after attaining the saturated value at
5th contour, c variation of J -integral on different planes showing
negligible effect of thickness of the sample
123
156
following method is proposed. A simple method for the
evaluation of T -stress in case of a single crystal fracture
specimen would be helpful. For isotopic material, stress
difference method (SDM) was effectively utilized by
Yang and Ravi-Chandar (1999) to determine the magni-
tude of T -stress. Here, similar stress difference method
has been proposed for an anisotropic material. The
magnitude of T -stress for the center cracked BD geom-
etry was evaluated for the specific crack orientation,
and considering anisotropy of an FCC single crystal.
For an anisotropic material, the near tip stress compo-
nents are given as (Sih et al. 1965; Shah et al. 2006),
  
K μ μ μ2 μ1
σ11 = √ I Re μ 1−μ2 √ −√ +T
2πr 1 2 cos θ+μ2 sin θ cos θ+μ1 sin θ
 
K 1 μ1 μ2
σ22 = √ I Re μ −μ √ −√
2πr 1 2 cos θ+μ2 sin θ cos θ+μ1 sin θ
where, σi j are in-plane normal stress components (see
Fig. 1b for the co-ordinate system), K I is the mode
I stress intensity factor, the non-singular term, T rep-
resents T -stress, (r, θ ) are the polar coordinates at the
crack tip, and Re [] represented the real part of the com-
plex number. Here, μ j are the roots of the characteristic
equation (Eq. 4), and represent the material properties
(Pataky et al. 2012; Kartal et al. 2014),
a11 μ4 − 2a16 μ3 + (2a12 + a66 ) μ2 − 2a26 μ + a22 = 0
noting that these two μ j are the two complex conju-
gate roots, for which the imaginary parts were positive.
The elastic constants, ai j , are the components of stress-
strain compliance matrix for an anisotropic material
calculated after coordinate transformation (Pataky et al.
2012) with the axes aligned with the crack geometry.
Now, from Eqs. 2 and 3, T -stress can be calculated for
an anisotropic material as,
Taniso = σ11 |θ=00 − σ22 |θ=00 × Re [−μ1 μ2 ]
Using Eq. 5, the magnitude of T -stress can be calcu-
lated for any fracture geometry. In this work, an elastic
anisotropic simulation was performed for the center
cracked BD specimen with Al single crystal, and the
magnitude of T -stress was evaluated. Here, the magni-
√ which acts along the tangential direction to the crack
∗ πa
tude of T -stress was normalized as, Taniso = Taniso
K ansio .
Where, K aniso was evaluated from the magnitude of
123
N. Deka, K. N. Jonnalagadda
Fig. 10 Variation of normalized T -stress (calculated using the
proposed stress difference method for anisotropic crystal) with
radial distance ahead of the notch for centrally cracked Brazilian
disk sample. The saturated value of T -stress for the BD geometry
(2) was very high negative, which was about -2.69 on the mid surface,

and -2.77 on the free surface, respectively. These magnitudes
clearly qualify BD specimen to be a very low constraint geometry
(3)
J -integral for the considered crack orientation in Al
single crystal using the method explained in Hoenig
∗
(1982). In Fig. 10, the variation of normalized Taniso
with the radial distance along the θ = 00 line is plotted.
It can be observed that for this particular configuration
of BD specimen of Al single crystal, the variation of
T -stress on the free and the mid surfaces were not very
significant. The saturated value of T -stress for the BD
geometry on the free surface was measured to be -2.77,
(4) while on the mid surface it was calculated to be -2.69.
These magnitudes of T -stress suggest that BD geom-
etry possesses a very low constraint level (throughout
the thickness direction) in comparison to other frac-
ture geometries as mentioned in Table 2 in Larsson and
Carlsson (1973) (it is to be noted that in Larsson and
Carlsson (1973), T -stress was normalized with √Ka ).
3.1.8 Effect of thickness of the BD sample
The crack tip constraint, T -stress, discussed previously
(5) is the in-plane constraint, which acts along a direc-
tion normal to the crack front on the crack plane. This
in-plane constraint is mainly decided by the specimen
dimension in the direction of the growing crack such
as the relative crack length, α = a/R. However, in
3D, the out-of-plane constraint also comes into effect,
front. This aspect of constraint is mainly influenced by
the specimen dimension parallel to the crack front, the
A low constraint center cracked Brazilian disk specimen...
thickness of the sample. For a sample with relatively
smaller thickness, the out-of-plane constraint is negli-
gible, and the situation tends to a case of plane stress.
Similarly, for a thicker sample, the condition tends to
a case of plane strain, and the out-of-plane constraint
reaches its maximum value (Wang et al. 2020; Qian
et al. 2014). Again, it is well understood that the crack
tip fields are sensitive to the thickness of the specimen,
which will be more significant with increasing thick-
ness of the sample. So, it is expected that thickness
of the sample will also have influence on the in-plane
crack tip constraint especially in the case of a thick
specimen. In this section, the effect of the out-of-plane
constraint in terms of the thickness of the BD specimen
is discussed. Simulation was carried out by considering
a BD specimen with thickness value of 4 mm. Similar
crack geometry, loading condition, and material behav-
ior of Al single crystal were employed.
In Fig. 11a, the variation of T -stress calculated using
Eq. 5 on the different planes of the sample are pre-
sented showing the effect of thickness on the in-plane
crack tip constraint. The in-plane T -stress was normal-
ized by the maximum mean stress on the corresponding
plane. It can be observed that on the free surfaces of
both the samples, the magnitudes of the normalized T -
stresses are not affected by the thickness of the sample.
However, on the mid surfaces, there was a effect of the
thickness on the in-plane T -stress. Besides, it can be
seen that even for a relatively thicker sample, the mag-
nitude of T -stress is significantly high negative for the
BD specimen. So, the characteristics of a high negative
constraint geometry are also observed in thicker BD
specimen.  p
The maximum logarithmic plastic strain, log λ1
near the crack tip is plotted in Fig. 11b. Here also, sim-
ilar to the 2 mm thick sample, the band at about 550 was
dominant both on the free and mid surfaces. However,
the magnitude of the plastic strain was slightly lower
along the localization band in case of a thick sample.
For the 4 mm thick sample also, the localization bands
exhibited very similar nature both on the free and the
mid surfaces. This was not observed in the case of the
1 mm thick SENT sample in Patil et al. (2008b), where
the localization behavior was different on the free and
the mid surfaces. This could be because of very high
negative T -stresses both on the free and mid surfaces
in case of the BD specimen, so that there is no change
of sign of the T -stress values as observed in Fig. 11a.
157
In Fig. 11c, the variation of J -integral with LPD is
shown. Here, a significant difference was observed on
the free and the mid surfaces of the 4 mm thick sam-
ple. For a thicker sample, the out-of-plane constraint
(in terms of the thickness) is comparatively significant,
which is more visible on a mid surface than on a free
surface. Again, the load values were higher in case of
the 4 mm thick sample compared to the 2 mm thick
sample, and correspondingly, higher J -integral values
were obtained.
So, these results obtained with the 4 mm thick BD
sample suggest that in BD specimen, the in-plane T -
stress is consistently very high negative throughout the
thickness of the sample. This also supports the BD
geometry to be a strong candidate to represent a very
low constraint situation as compared to other fracture
specimens where the level of constraint is not suffi-
ciently low, and varies across the thickness.
3.1.9 Crack orientations {101} 010 and {010} 100
In addition to the crack orientation {010} 101,(O1 )
two more crack orientations were considered to ana-
lyze the strain localization in the BD geometry (Fig.
12). Here, the idea is to study the strain localization
characteristics in a high negative constraint geometry
like BD specimen with different orientations of the cen-
tral crack. The orientation {101} 010 (O2 ) is perpen-
dicular to the earlier orientation, O1 . Thus, the slip
directions will be now along the normal to slip direc-
tions of O1 . So, in contrast to earlier orientation, now
any band along 00 , 550 and 1250 with respect to the
crack will be a kink band, and a band along 350 , 900
and 1450 will be a slip shear band. However, the orien-
tation {010} 100, (O3 ) involve more complex bands
as described in Flouriot et al. (2003) due to participation
of both slip and kink bands along the same direction.
The forward band will be now inclined along 450 to the
crack. The detailed structure of the discontinuity lines
corresponding to these crack orientations was previ-
ously described in Flouriot et al. (2003). Here, results
obtained with these two additional crack orientations
are briefly presented and discussed.  p
The maximum logarithmic plastic strain, log λ1
near the crack tip is plotted in Fig. 13. Here also, for
orientation O2 , the band at about 550 was dominant
both on the free and mid surfaces, similar to the orien-
tation O1 . However, the magnitude of the plastic strain
was slightly lower along the localization band in case of
123
158 N. Deka, K. N. Jonnalagadda

Fig. 11 Results obtained

with the thicker BD sample,
a Effect of the thickness of
the sample on the in-plane
T -stress, b Maximum log.
plastic strain near the crack
tip at r = 0.3 mm, c
variation of J -integral with
LPD on different planes,
showing the effect of
thickness of the sample

Fig. 12 Different crack

orientations, O1 ,O2 and O3

orientation O2 . As mentioned earlier, this localization
band is along the normal direction to the slip system,
S2 , so it is of kink nature. Earlier for the same crack ori-
entation in a high constraint CT sample, a fourth band
along 350 was noticed on the mid plane in addition to
three other bands along 550 , 900 and 1250 . Though the
fourth band was absent on the free surface (Flouriot
et al. 2003). In contrast, only one band along 550 was
dominant both on free and mid surfaces of this low con-
straint BD specimen, and there was no significant vari-
ation across the thickness of the sample for this crack
orientation. For orientation O3 also, the forward local-
ization bands exhibited very similar nature both on the
free and the mid surfaces but it is oriented at about 450
to the notch. But for this crack geometry the magnitude
of strain localization was significantly less compared
to the other two crack orientations. Earlier, relatively
homogeneous strain distribution with lesser tendency
to strain localization was noticed in CT sample with this
crack orientation (Flouriot et al. 2003). Similar trend
of confined plastic zone was also noticed in case of a
double-notched tensile specimen with this crack orien-
tation ( Orientation B in Sabnis et al. (2012)). For this
low constraint BD geometry, only forward band was
observed both on the free and mid surfaces. Neverthe-
less, the variation of plastic strain across the thickness
of the sample was also minimal with these two orien-
tations.
As discussed earlier, a kink band is closely con-
nected with high lattice rotation. Next in Fig. 14, varia-
tion of lattice rotation near the notch is plotted for these
two orientations. For orientation O2 , the possible kink
orientations are along 00 , 550 and 1250 to the crack
line. Earlier, a strain localization band along 550 was

123
A low constraint center cracked Brazilian disk specimen... 159

 p
Fig. 13 Maximum log. plastic strain, log λ1 near the crack
tip with a orientation O2 , {101} 010 and b orientation O3 ,
{010} 100 cracks, and c angular variation. In both the cases, the
forward band was significant compared to other possible bands.
For O2 , the kink band at about 550 was dominant, while minimal
strain localization was noticed along the 450 band with orienta-
tion O3

observed with this orientation. Similarly, dominant lat- all the three crack orientations. The O2 case exhib-
tice rotation was noticed along the 550 kink band as ited slightly higher constraint level compared to O1
shown in Fig. 14a. The magnitude of lattice rotation and O3 . Nevertheless, these various crack configura-
was higher for orientation O2 compared to other two tions in the BD specimen strongly support it to be a
crack orientations. Moreover, slight lattice rotation was suitable low constraint geometry for an FCC single
also noticed behind the notch. Again, with orientation crystal.
O3 , negligible lattice rotation was computed along the
forward band at about 450 as shown in Fig. 14b. The
magnitudes of lattice rotation confirmed the formation
3.2 Mixed mode I–II loading
of a kink band with orientation O2 while there was
no noticeable kink band for the other two orientations.
The major benefit of this disk specimen is that, it is pos-
Previously, in the EBSD analysis on high constraint
sible to vary the mode mixity at the crack tip, and alter
CT specimens of single crystal nickel-base superalloy
the mode of fracture from Mode I (tensile) to mixed
(Flouriot et al. 2003), lattice rotation along the 550 band
mode (tension-shear and compression-shear) simply by
was mainly observed for orientation O2 , whereas three
changing the notch inclination angle, β, with respect
different bands were observed for orientation O3 .
to the loading axis. An attempt was made to explore
In Fig. 15, the variation of T -stress calculated using
this aspect of Brazilian disk using the CPFE formula-
Eq. 5 on the different planes of the sample are pre-
tion for Al single crystal. Simulation was carried out
sented showing the effect of crack orientation on the
by rotating the cracked disk so that the notch made
in-plane crack tip constraint. These in-plane T -stresses
an angle of β = 31.30 with the loading direction and
were normalized by the maximum mean stress on the
the specimen was loaded to LPD=0.2 mm. The reason
corresponding planes. The BD geometry with these
behind the selection of this particular value of incli-
two crack orientations also exhibited high negative
nation angle was that for isotropic elasticity, centrally
constraint level both on free as well as mid surfaces.
cracked Brazilian disk with a/R = 0.1 exhibits pure
Compared to orientation O1 , the variation of T -stress
mode II (Ayatollahi and Aliha 2005). Here, the orien-
across thickness direction was lesser for O2 and min-
tation of the crack geometry for the mixed mode study
imal for O3 . The magnitude of T -stress was always
was similar to the earlier mode I case, {010} 101, (ori-
lesser on the free surfaces than inside the samples for
entation O1 ).

123
160 N. Deka, K. N. Jonnalagadda

Fig. 14 Lattice rotation near the crack tip with a orientation O2 , {101} 010 and b orientation O3 , {010} 100 cracks, and c angular
variation. Significant lattice rotation confirmed the kink band along 550 for orientation O2

3.2.1 Load–displacement curve

The load vs. load point displacement (LPD) curves for

the mode I and mixed mode I–II load are presented in
Fig. 16. The simulation was continued till the maximum
load point displacement (LPD) of 0.2 mm. At the point
of maximum LPD, the reaction force for the mixed
mode case was recorded as 410 N, which was slightly
higher than the mode I load value of 380 N. Otherwise,
both the curves exhibited similar behavior. It should be
noted that, one of the benefits of the BD specimen is that
it requires a high failure load, which can be advanta-
geous in performing experiments on ductile single crys-
talline materials. Here, the load-displacement curves
revealed a parabolic nature for the Brazilian disk test on Fig. 15 In-plane T -stress with orientation O2 , {101} 010 and
Al single crystal. The non-linear response was a result orientation O3 , {010} 100 cracks. High negative constraint level
of contact with the platens and the crack tip plasticity. was noticed both on free as well as mid surfaces with these two
crack orientations too
The first deviation from the linear behavior of load-
displacement curve (point A in Fig. 16) was related to
the onset of the plastic deformation at the contact area
was recorded at about 0.040 mm, which was slightly
of the loading platen, and later the crack tip plastic
lesser than the value under mode I loading as shown
deformation (strain localization commenced at point
in Fig. 3. Asymmetric displacement contours were
B) also contributed to the non-linear behavior.
observed because of the asymmetry in the loading with
respect to the inclined crack and crystallographic ori-
3.2.2 Displacement fields and mixed mode crack tip entation.
opening displacement (CTOD) The crack tip opening displacement (CTOD) was
also calculated for the mixed mode loading using both
The contour plots of displacement fields for the BD u 1 and u 2 components of displacement for the inclined
specimen under mixed mode I–II load are shown in crack, according to Eq. 7 (Ma et al. 1999). The opening
Fig. 17. The maximum value for the u 2 component and shearing components of CTOD for the inclined

123
A low constraint center cracked Brazilian disk specimen... 161

Fig. 18 Variation of crack tip opening displacement (CTOD)

Fig. 16 Simulated load-displacement curve exhibiting similar
behavior under mode I, and mxed mode I–II loading, but with
slightly higher magnitudes under the mixed mode condition. At
point A, the plastic deformation started at the contact area of the
loading platen, and at point B, strain localization commenced at
the crack tip, which also contributed to the non-linear behavior
crack were denoted by D I and D I I , respectively, and
were calculated using Eq. 6. The value of CTOD at
LPD=0.2 mm was calculated to be 0.021 mm for the
central crack under the current mixed mode loading
(Fig. 18), which was slightly lower than the monotonic
loading case.
DI = u+ − + −
2  − u 2  ; D I I = u 1 − u 1 (6)
 − 2  + − 2
C T O D = D 2I + D 2I I = u + 2 −u 2 + u 1 − u 1
(7)
The combined mode I and mode II loading at the
crack tip can be represented by the following local
mode-mixity parameter, α, which is also related to
stress intensity factors as given by Eq. 8 (Ma et al.
1999),
with LPD measured for the mixed mode loading utilizing both u 1
and u 2 displacement components. Monotonic increase of CTOD
confirms that there was no unloading at the crack tip under the
mixed mode loading. Variation of local mode mixity parameter,
α with LPD under the mixed mode loading is also plotted (blue
color). High mode mixity was observed for aluminum single
crystal with the inclined angle of β = 31.30 , where the BD spec-
imen with same inclination angle exhibits pure mode II condition
for isotropic materials (Ayatollahi and Aliha 2005)
KI I DI I
α = arctan = arctan (8)
KI DI
The variation of mode mixity, α × (2/π ) with the
applied load point displacement (LPD) is also pre-
sented in Fig. 18. For the inclined angle of β = 31.30 ,
the BD specimen with isotropic materials exhibits pure
mode II condition (Ayatollahi and Aliha 2005). But, for
the FCC aluminum single crystal, noticeable amount of
mode mixity was noticed. The condition of α×(2/π ) =
1 refers to pure mode II condition. The local mode mix-
ity parameter, α, is influenced by the slip activity near
the crack, and hence, this could be the reason for the
initial variation of it with the applied LPD as observed
in Fig. 18.

Fig. 17 Fringe contour

plots of displacement fields
on the free surface under
mixed mode loading.
Asymmetric contours were
observed due to asymmetry
in the loading with respect
to the inclined crack and
crystallographic orientation

123
162
3.2.3 Plastic strain localization
In Fig. 19, contour plots of maximum logarithmic prin-
cipal plastic strain under mixed mode loading are pre-
sented on the two free surfaces and the mid plane.
Unlike, mode I case, here two localization bands were
observed to emanate from the crack tip. These localiza-
tion bands were different at both the crack tips of the
central crack. Importantly, these bands did not corre-
spond to any slip direction, which was earlier observed
under mode I load for this crack orientation. Here, for
mixed mode I–II case, loading was not symmetric with
respect to the crack line, and slip systems. There was a
gradual variation of these contours from one free sur-
face to the other. The out-of-plane deformation was
not same on both the free surfaces of the cracked disk,
which caused the variation in the plastic strain con-
tours. Nevertheless, the bands at the mid plane were of
the same order of magnitude and spread, in compari-
son to the free surfaces. With this particular inclination
angle, it is expected to have pure mode II loading in
this BD specimen for elastic isotropic materials. But,
these plots revealed that there is noticeable variation
in mode mixity in the case of cubic crystal. Although
the angle chosen was based on isotropic elasticity, it
is possible to calculate for other orientations of the
crack and Zener ratios. The Zener ratio represents the
degree of anisotropy in the crystal, whose affect on
both the spread and localization were well studied ear-
lier for FCC single crystals (Deka and Jonnalagadda
2017, 2019).
3.2.4 Lattice rotation
Contour plots of lattice rotation in the BD specimen
under mixed mode loading were depicted in Fig. 20.
Again, similar variation of lattice rotation from one
free surface to the other was observed. However, under
mixed mode I–II load, the maximum value of lattice
rotation was recorded as 130 along the shear band ori-
ented at about 350 to the crack line, which was signifi-
cantly higher than that under mode I load. So, signifi-
cant rotation of the crystal had taken place under mixed
mode load, along the potential kink band orientation at
350 for this orientation of the FCC crystal. Importantly,
it is observed that depending on mode mixity, the shear
localization has shifted from slip shear to kink shear
band. However, these observations need to be experi-
mentally verified.
123
N. Deka, K. N. Jonnalagadda
3.2.5 A note on experiment with BD specimen
The current numerical analysis provides several useful
details that would be beneficial in designing as well
as performing the BD experiments. The experimental
arrangement required is the same as for any BD frac-
ture experiment. The crystal has to be oriented, to align
it along the required crystallographic axis, measured
using Laue diffraction or some other technique. One
of the ways to fabricate the sample is using electric
discharge machining (EDM) using fine wires. In addi-
tion, Appendix A1 contains simulation results for Al
single crystal that elucidate the details to choose the
geometric dimensions based on the plastic zone size.
The information on the load-displacement response can
guide the suitable mechanical loading setup. The order
of displacement and strain fields near the crack tip will
decide the desired resolution of the deformation mea-
suring technique. For example, in the case of digital
image correlation (DIC) technique, the required spa-
tial and optical resolution, field of view of the opti-
cal setup, etc., can be planned (Das et al. 2017). The
numerical simulations would provide a prior knowl-
edge about the strain localization regions, so specimen
preparation and imaging methods can focus on regions
of interest, e.g., DIC speckle patterning. During the
experiment, the bottom platen will be rigidly held, with
the top platen moving and loading the BD sample. If
the experimental technique involves any optical imag-
ing, the check of parallel movement of the top platen
can be done in a simple way, by including it in the field
of view. Since the LPD is of the order of microns, an
optical check is preferred depending on the depth of
focus of the imaging instrument. Similarly, any mis-
alignment of the disk can also be checked. In presence
of any misalignment, the crack tip fields for the mode I
loading, e.g., strain localization bands will not be sym-
metric. So, presence of misalignment can be detected
and hence, attention should be given to minimize it.
Important measurements from the experiments on
single crystal BD fracture specimen could include:
(a) load-displacement curve, (b) full field deformation
(displacements and/or strains) using DIC, or similar
technique near the notch tip as well as the whole sam-
ple, (c) lattice rotation through electron backscatter
diffraction (EBSD) scan to verify the presence of any
kink band (in case of mixed mode loading). The proce-
dure to retrieve quantities, such as, J -integral, T -stress,
A low constraint center cracked Brazilian disk specimen...
Fig. 19 Contour plots of maximum principal logarithmic plastic
strain under mixed mode loading on different planes across the
thickness direction. Under mixed mode I–II loading, two local-
Fig. 20 Contour plots of lattice rotation (in degree) under mixed
mode loading. These magnitudes were significantly high in com-
parison to that under mode I loading suggesting significant rota-
etc., can be independently decided and post-processed
based on requirements.
4 Conclusions
The following conclusions were arrived from the cur-
rent numerical analysis of the Brazilian disk simulation
on Al single crystal:
– The crack tip fields strongly supported the center
cracked BD specimen to be a potential candidate
for low crack tip constraint fracture specimen for
ductile FCC single crystals. The magnitude (high
negative) of T -stress evaluated using the stress dif-
ference method (SDM) for an anisotropic cubic
163
ization bands were observed, which were different at both the
crack tips of the central crack. A gradual variation of these con-
tours was noticed from one free surface to the other
tion of the crystal along the potential kink band orienting at 350
to the notch line
crystal, also confirmed the low constraint level in
comparison to other conventional specimens.
– Moreover, for this particular BD configuration of
Al single crystal, the variation of various quantities
across the thickness of the sample was negligible,
which would be useful as any measurement made
on the free surface during the experiment would
be consistent along the thickness direction. This
was mainly due to less variation of T -stress across
thickness of the specimen.
– Under pure mode I load, the plastic strain fields
reveal the dominance of the forward localization
band at 550 for crack orientations O1 (slip) and
O2 (kink), and 450 for orientation O3 (slip). Under
mixed mode I–II loading, the strain localization
bands were not along the slip directions. Also, high
123
164 N. Deka, K. N. Jonnalagadda

lattice rotation in the crystal at 350 to crack line (Fig. 21c). Here, all these simulations were performed
suggested the occurrence of kink shear bands under with radius, R = 12 mm.
mixed mode loading for crack orientation O1 .
– The energy release rate, J -integral for this speci-
men was also evaluated utilizing the field solutions, A2: Crystal plasticity model and computational tools
choosing a domain which is not affected by the plas- (Deka and Jonnalagadda 2019)
ticity at the crack as well as at the contact point of
the loading platen and the specimen. The kinematics of the elasto-plastic deformation of the
single crystal was modeled utilizing the multiplicative
These numerical results provided useful information
decomposition of the deformation gradient, F into elas-
related to BD specimen geometry. However, it is impor-
tic, Fe , and plastic, F p , components (Marin and Daw-
tant to note that all these results need to be validated
son 1998; Marin 2006). The elastic deformation gradi-
with experimental results for better acceptance of the
ent, Fe was again decomposed into elastic left stretch
observations made in this work. The experiments com-
tensor, Ve , and rotation tensor, Re .
bined with simulations will also help in choosing the
The flow rule was defined by a non-linear viscous
right constitutive parameters for the hardening law and
constitutive law in the form of a power law as (Marin
flow rule used here.
2006),

1
α τα m  
Appendix γ̇ = γ̇0 sign τ α (9)
gα
A1: Simulations with different BD configurations
where, g α and τ α , are the strength and resolved shear
stress of the slip system α, respectively; γ̇0 is the refer-
Several simulations with different combinations of
ence strain rate, and m controls the slip rate sensitivity.
a/R ratios, crack lengths, 2a, and applied LPD were
Evolution of slip system strength, g α is given as
performed to figure out the suitable BD geometry.
(Bassani and Wu 1991),
Here, the contour
 p plots of maximum logarithmic plas-
tic strain, log λ1 obtained in some of these simula-

12
tions are plotted. The idea was to have a low magnitude ġ α = h αβ γ̇ β (10)
of a/R ratio to obtain a BD geometry with high neg- β=1
ative T -stress. In Fig. 21a, it was noticed that for a
BD geometry with a/R = 0.05, magnitude of LPD = where, the matrix h αβ comprises instantaneous hard-
0.2 mm was not sufficient enough to cause any signifi- ening moduli which include both self and latent hard-
cant plasticity at the crack tip. Then, some trial simula- ening.
tions were performed with higher values of LPD. Still, The diagonal terms of the matrix, h αβ was repre-
it was observed that the plasticity at the crack tip for sented as,
this central crack was not so significant though, plastic
deformation at the contact of the loading platen and the  
specimen was noticeable (results are not included). So, h αα = L(γ α ) . M γ β ; β = 1, N (no sum on α)
to have prominent localization bands at the crack tip, (11)
magnitude of the applied LPD was further increased to
LPD = 0.5 mm. But, the deformation fields emanating where, the instantaneous hardening modulus under sin-
from the contact area interacted with the crack tip fields gle slip, L, was implemented as,
as shown in Fig. 21b. Next, a larger central crack with  
higher a/R ratio was chosen, and the combination of α (h 0 − h s ) γ α
L(γ ) = (h 0 − h s ) sech 2
+ h s (12)
LPD = 0.2 mm, a/R = 0.1, and 2a = 2.4 mm was (τ1 − τ0 )
found to be a suitable BD geometry with prominent
localization bands at the crack tip without any interac- here, τ1 , is the stage I stress, τ0 , is the initial critical
tion with the deformation fields from the contact area resolved shear stress, h 0 , is the hardening modulus just

123
A low constraint center cracked Brazilian disk specimen... 165

Fig. 21 Maximum
principal logarithmic
 p plastic
strain, log λ1 with
different configurations and
loading conditions

after initial yield, and h s , is the hardening modulus The notations for different interactions of slip sys-
during easy glide. tems were assumed from Bassani and Wu (1991). For
In Eq. 11, the scalar term, M is associated with inter- FCC single crystal, there are five independent com-
active (cross) hardening. The term M has no effect on ponents of f αβ , and they are categorized as follows:
the hardening of the α-th slip system when γ β = 0. The N = no junction: f αβ = a1 ; H =Hirth lock: f αβ = a2 ;
magnitude
 of M is unity when all itsarguments are zero, C=coplaner junction: f αβ = a3 ; G=glissile junction:
i.e., M γ β = 0; β = 1, N , β = α = 1. When shear f αβ = a4 ; S=sessile junction: f αβ = a5 ; with a1 ≤
strain, γ β is large, for β = α, the term M has a finite a2 ≤ a3 ≤ a4 ≤ a5 . For Al single crystal, these coeffi-
value, which is given as, cients were chosen as, a1 = a2 = a3 = 1.75, a4 = 2,
a5 = 2.25 (Lu et al. 2011).

N The hardening of the system β, caused by the slip on
  γβ
M γ β ; β = 1, N , β = α = 1 + f αβ tanh the system α, which represents the latent hardening if
λ0
β=1 the system β is inactive, was considered to be a fraction
β=α
of the modulus, h αα through the latent hardening ratio
(13) (LHR), q as Eq. 14,

In Eq. 13, λ0 represents the amount of slip after which h βα = qh αα , β = α (no sum on α) (14)
the interaction between slip systems α and β attains its
maximum strength. The interaction coefficients, f αβ , where, q is the ratio of the latent-hardening rate to the
signify the magnitude of the strength of a particular self-hardening rate of a slip system.
slip interaction as mentioned in Table 3 (Bassani and
Wu 1991).

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166 N. Deka, K. N. Jonnalagadda

Table 3 Strength amplitude factors f αβ for 12 FCC slip system (Bassani and Wu 1991)
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

1 0
2 C 0
3 C C 0
4 S G H 0
5 G N G C 0
6 H G S C C 0
7 N G G G S H 0
8 G S H N G G C 0
9 G H S G H S C C 0
10 H S G G G N H S G 0
11 S H G S H G G G N C 0
12 G G N H S G S H G C C 0

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