ECE 3132/EGM 1123/ME 1205

Materials Science

Lecture 07
Failure
 Objectives

 Fracture

- Ductile and Brittle modes

- Impact Fracture Testing

 Fatigue
 Creep

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 Learning Objectives

 Describe creep behavior that leads to fracture of polymeric

materials.
 Introduce fatigue and creep of metals.

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 Learning Outcomes

 Evaluate the creep behavior

 Explain the phenomenon of fatigue and creep

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 Introduction
 The failure of engineering materials is always an undesirable event. A
failure involves economic losses, the jeopardy of human lives and
disruption of products and services.
 Therefore, it is important to know what causes failure and what can be
done to prevent it.
 We are going to discuss three modes of failure:

(1) Fracture

(2) Fatigue

(3) Creep

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 Fracture
 Fracture is the separation of a body into two or more pieces in
response to an imposed stress that is static and at temperatures that
are low relative to the melting temperature of the material.
 The imposed stress may be tensile, compressive, shear or torsional.
 There are two fracture modes:

(1) Ductile

(2) Brittle

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 Fracture

Ductile Fracture:

1. Ductile materials display substantial plastic deformation with high energy

adsorption.

2. Any fracture process involves two steps :

I. crack formation
II. propagation

3. The plastic deformation process proceeds relatively slowly as the crack

length is extended.

4. Such a crack is said to be stable; it resists any further extension unless

there is an increase in applied stress

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 Ductile Fracture:

(d) Crack
(a) Initial Necking (b) Small cavities (c) Merging of
propagation
formation in cavities to
the interior of form a crack. Finally, there is
the cross The crack rapid propagation (e) FRACTURE!
section. continues to of the crack
grow around the outer
parallel to its perimeter of the
major axis. neck. This is
followed by
fracture.

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 Fracture

Ductile Fracture: Result:

• Sometimes called a cup-and-cone fracture.

• In this type of fractured specimen, the
central interior region of the surface has an
irregular and fibrous appearance, which
is indicative of plastic deformation.

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 Fracture

Brittle Fracture:

1. Brittle fracture takes place little or no plastic deformation, and by

rapid crack propagation.

2. Low energy adsorption.

3. Crack propagates rapidly and will continue without an increase in

magnitude of the imposed stress.

4. Such cracks are said to be unstable.

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 Fracture

Brittle fracture iii. Further stress propagates the

~is believed to take place in 3 stages: microcracks, and stored elastic

strain energy may also contribute
i.Plastic deformation concentrates
to the propagation of the cracks
dislocation along slip planes at
obstacles

ii.Shear stresses build up in places

where dislocations are blocked, and
as a result, microcracks are nucleated

Brittle fracture in a mile steel

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 Fracture

Brittle Fracture:

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 Fracture

 Ductile fracture is almost always preferred for two reasons:

(1) Brittle fracture occurs suddenly without any warning. For ductile
fracture, the presence of plastic deformation gives warning, allowing
preventive measures to be taken.

(2) More strain energy is required to induce ductile fracture as ductile

materials are generally tougher.

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 Impact Fracture Testing

 Toughness :the measure of the

amount of energy a material can
absorb before fracturing.
Most common standardized tests:

i. Charpy

ii. Izod test.

By using conservation of energy,
the energy absorbed by the
fracture can be measured.

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 Impact Fracture Testing

IZOD and CHARPY test

Notched and Unnotched
Impact

•The intention of the notch

is to approximate end use
conditions; the notch serves
as a stress concentrator.
•Unnotched impact result is
much superior due to the
lack of stress concentrator

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 Ductile to Brittle Transition

 One of the primary functions of the Charpy test is to determine

whether or not a material experiences ductile-to-brittle transition with
decreasing temperature, and if so, the range of temperatures over
which it occurs.
 The ductile-to-brittle transition is related to the temperature
dependence of the measured impact energy absorption.
 For many alloys, there is a range of temperature over which the
ductile-to-brittle transition occurs. This presents some difficulty in
specifying a single transition temperature.

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 Ductile to Brittle Transition

 Structures constructed in alloys that exhibit ductile-to-brittle

behaviour should be used only at temperatures above the transition
temperature, to avoid brittle failure.

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 Ductile to Brittle Transition

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 Fatigue
 Fatigue is a form of failure that occurs in structures subjected to dynamic and
fluctuating stresses (e.g. bridges and machine components)
 Failure can occur at stress levels considerably lower than the tensile or yield
strength for a static load.
 Fatigue failure normally occurs after a lengthy period of repeated stress
cycling and usually occurs without warning.
 Fatigue failure is brittle-like, even in ductile materials.
 Accounts for 90% of all metallic failures!

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 Fatigue: Cyclic Stresses

Reversed Stress Cycle:

•Regular and sinusoidal time dependence. Amplitude is
symmetrical about a mean zero stress level

Repeated Stress Cycle:

•Amplitude is asymmetrical about a mean zero stress
level.

Random Stress Cycle:

•Stess level vary randomly in amplitude and frequency.
•.

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 Fatigue: Cyclic Stresses

• The stress amplitude alternates Stress Ratio:

 min
about a mean stress, σm, defined as R
the average of maximum and  max
minimum stresses in the cycle.
   min
 m  max
2
• Range of stress:

 r   max   min

• Stress amplitude:
 r  max   min
a  
2 2

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 Fatigue: S-N Curve

 Two types of S-N behaviour are observed.

i. represents a material that displays a fatigue limit.

ii. represents a material that does not display a fatigue limit.

 For fatigue, the behaviour of a material is plotted as stress amplitude
S versus the log of the number N of cycles to failure.

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 Fatigue: Fatigue Testing

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 Fatigue: Fatigue Limit

The S-N curve becomes horizontal

at higher N values; or a limiting
stress level, called the fatigue limit.

 Failure will not occur below the fatigue limit (even for an infinite
number of cycles)
 For many steels, fatigue limits range between 35% and 60% of the
tensile strength

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 Fatigue: Fatigue Limit

• Most non-ferrous alloys do not have a

fatigue limit; the S-N curve continues
downwards at larger N values
• Fatigue will ultimately occurs
regardless of the magnitude of the
stress

• For these materials, fatigue strength is defined as the stress level at which
failure will occur for some specified number of cycles
• Fatigue life ,Nf is the number of cycles to cause failure at a specified stress level.

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 Fatigue
 The process of fatigue is characterized by three steps:

1. Crack initiation

2. Crack propagation

3. Final failure
 Cracks associated with fatigue failure always initiate on the surface of
a component at some point of stress concentration.
 E.g. dents, holes, sharp fillets, threads etc

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 Fatigue
Methods to reduce fatigue failure:

(1) Reducing mean stress level

(2) Eliminating sharp surface discontinuities

(3) Improving surface finishing by polishing

(4) Case hardening by carburizing

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 Creep
 Materials are often placed at elevated temperatures and exposed to
static stresses (e.g. turbine rotors in jet engines)
 Deformation under such circumstances is termed creep.
 Creep is a time-dependant process and undergoes progressive plastic
deformation.
 For metal, creep becomes significant under temperatures greater than
about 0.4Tm (Tm = absolute melting temperature)

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 Creep: Testing

Initial result: Instantaneous

deformation ( Elastic zone)

Further results:

Primary(transient) creep  decreasing

in creep rate due to strain hardening

Secondary (steady-state) creep plot

A constant load or stress is applied
under isothermal condition during
testing.
become linear where the creep rate is
almost constant. (Longest duration)
Final results:
Tertiary creepAcceleration of the rate
and ultimate failure.RUPTURE!!!

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 Creep
 IMPORTANT POINT FOR MATERIAL DESIGN

 The creep curve from secondary stage, or sometimes call
t
steady-state creep rate/minimum creep rate,  s is considered for
long-life applications, such as a nuclear power plant component
that is scheduled to operate for several decades
 For short-life creep situations, time to rupture, tr is the main
design consideration.

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 Summary

 Fracture
- Brittle/Ductile
- Charpy Impact Test
 Fatigue
- Factors that affect fatigue
 Creep
- Primary, secondary and tertiary stage

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 Reference

William D. Callister: Materials Science and Engineering:

An Introduction, 7th Edition, Wiley
William F. Smith, Javad Hashemi: Foundations of
Materials Science and Engineering, 4th Edition,
McGraw-Hill
Donald R. Askeland, Pradeep P.Phule (2006), The
Science and Engineering of Materials, International Edition,
Thompson.

© LMS SEGi education

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