ENR116 – Mod. 2- Slide No.

Fracture

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 ENR116 – Mod. 2- Slide No. 2

Intended Learning Outcomes

At the end of this section, students will be able to:-

• Understand why materials are not as strong as theory

predicts.

• Identify the types of flaw and their involvement in failure.

 ENR116 – Mod. 2- Slide No. 3

Fracture mechanisms

Ductile fracture:
• Accompanied by significant plastic deformation.

Brittle fracture:
• Very little or no plastic deformation, catastrophic.
 ENR116 – Mod. 2- Slide No. 4

Ductile vs. Brittle failure

Classification:
Fracture Very Moderately
Brittle
behavior: Ductile Ductile

Adapted from Fig. 8.1,

Callister & Rethwisch 8e.

%AR or %EL Large Moderate Small

Ductile fracture is Ductile: Brittle:
usually more desirable Warning before No
than brittle fracture! fracture warning
 ENR116 – Mod. 2- Slide No. 5

Example: Pipe failures

Ductile failure:

one piece
large deformation

Brittle failure:

many pieces
small deformations

Figures from V.J. Colangelo and F.A. Heiser, Analysis

of Metallurgical Failures (2nd ed.), Fig. 4.1(a) and (b),
p. 66 John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 1987. Used with
permission.
 ENR116 – Mod. 2- Slide No. 6

Moderately ductile failure

Failure Stages:
void void growth shearing
necking nucleation and coalescence at surface fracture
s

Adapted from Fig. 8.2, Callister & Rethwisch 8e.

 ENR116 – Mod. 2- Slide No. 7

Moderately ductile failure

Resulting fracture surfaces (steel)

Particles Ductile region Brittle region

serve as void
nucleation
sites. 50 mm

100 mm

From V.J. Colangelo and F.A. Heiser,
Analysis of Metallurgical Failures (2nd
ed.), Fig. 11.28, p. 294, John Wiley and
Sons, Inc., 1987. (Orig. source: P.
Thornton, J. Mater. Sci., Vol. 6, 1971, pp.
347-56.)
Fracture surface of tire cord wire
loaded in tension. Courtesy of F.
Roehrig, CC Technologies, Dublin,
OH. Used with permission.
 ENR116 – Mod. 2- Slide No. 8

Moderately ductile vs.

brittle failure

cup-and-cone fracture brittle fracture

Adapted from Fig. 8.3, Callister & Rethwisch 8e.
 ENR116 – Mod. 2- Slide No. 9

Brittle failure
Arrows indicate point at which failure originated

Adapted from Fig. 8.5(a), Callister & Rethwisch 8e.

 ENR116 – Mod. 2- Slide No. 10

Brittle fracture surfaces

Intergranular Transgranular
(between grains) (through grains)

4 mm 160 mm

304 S. Steel (metal) 316 S. Steel (metal)

Reprinted w/permission from "Metals
Handbook", 9th ed, Fig. 633, p. 650. Copyright
1985, ASM International, Materials Park, OH.
(Micrograph by J.R. Keiser and A.R. Olsen, Oak
Ridge National Lab.)
Reprinted w/ permission from "Metals
Handbook", 9th ed, Fig. 650, p. 357. Copyright
1985, ASM International, Materials Park, OH.
(Micrograph by D.R. Diercks, Argonne National
Lab.)
 ENR116 – Mod. 2- Slide No. 11

Test yourself: failure mechanisms

Please take a few moments to study these photographs. From the
characteristics of each surface, what types of failure can you identify?
(answers reveal automatically)

Distinctive ‘cone’ shape, Flat, smooth fracture

indicative of cup and cone surface
fracture

Fracture area much smaller No signs of plastic

than material cross section deformation

Moderately ductile Brittle

 ENR116 – Mod. 2- Slide No. 12

Test yourself 2: failure mechanisms

Distinctive ‘cup and cone’ shapes to

fracture surfaces
Some reduction in
cross sectional area

Moderately ductile
 ENR116 – Mod. 2- Slide No. 13

Test yourself 3: failure mechanisms

Small change in cross-sectional

area

Brittle

Jagged perimeter, no well defined ‘cup

and cone’ shape to fracture region
 ENR116 – Mod. 2- Slide No. 14

Ideal vs. real materials

Stress-strain behavior (Room T):
s
perfect material-no flaws
E/10

carefully produced glass fiber

typical ceramic typical strengthened metal

E/100
typical polymer
e
0.1

TSengineering << TS perfect

materials materials
 ENR116 – Mod. 2- Slide No. 15

Ideal vs. real materials

da Vinci (500 yrs ago!) observed...

The longer the wire, the smaller the load for

failure.

Reason:

Flaws cause
premature failure

Reprinted w/ permission from R.W.

Hertzberg, "Deformation and Fracture
Mechanics of Engineering Materials", (4th
ed.) Fig. 7.4. John Wiley and Sons, Inc.,
1996.
 ENR116 – Mod. 2- Slide No. 16

Stress concentrators

http://www.open.ac.uk/openlearn/
science-maths-technology/engine
ering-and-technology/structural-in
tegrity-materials-testing?track=2
 ENR116 – Mod. 2- Slide No. 17

Flaws are stress concentrators

• Griffith Crack

where
t = radius of curvature
t
so = applied stress
sm = stress at crack tip

Adapted from Fig. 8.8(a), Callister & Rethwisch 8e.

 ENR116 – Mod. 2- Slide No. 18

Engineering fracture design

Avoid sharp corners
smax
Stress Conc. Factor, Kt = s0

2.5
w
smax
2.0 increasing w/h
r, h
fillet
radius 1.5

1.0 r/h
Adapted from Fig. 8.2W(c), Callister
6e. 0 0.5 1.0
(Fig. 8.2W(c) is from G.H.
Neugebauer, Prod. Eng. (NY), Vol. sharper fillet radius
14, pp. 82-87 1943.)
 ENR116 – Mod. 2- Slide No. 19

Crack propagation
Cracks having sharp tips propagate easier than cracks having
blunt tips.
Deformed
region
Brittle Ductile
A plastic material deforms at a crack tip, which “blunts” the
crack.

• Crack propagates - release of elastic strain energy.

• Crack grows - creation of new surfaces requires energy.

• Crack will grow in order to balance out these energies

 ENR116 – Mod. 2- Slide No. 20

Criterion for crack propagation

Crack propagates if crack-tip stress (sm) exceeds a critical

stress (sc)
 
where sm > sc

E = modulus of elasticity
s = specific surface energy
α = one half length of internal crack

For ductile materials => replace gs with gs + gp where gp is

plastic deformation energy.
 ENR116 – Mod. 2- Slide No. 21

Design against crack growth

Crack growth condition:
K ≥ Kc = Y a
Largest, most highly stressed cracks grow first.
--Scenario 1: Max. flaw --Scenario 2: Design stress
size dictates design stress. dictates max. flaw size.
2
Kc 1  K c 
design  a max 
Y a max   Ydesign 
amax
s
fracture fracture
no no
fracture amax fracture s
 ENR116 – Mod. 2- Slide No. 22

Impact testing
Impact loading: (Charpy)

final height initial height

Adapted from Fig. 8.12(b), Callister & Rethwisch 8e. (Fig. 8.12(b) is adapted from H.W. Hayden, W.G. Moffatt, and J. Wulff,
The Structure and Properties of Materials, Vol. III, Mechanical Behavior, John Wiley and Sons, Inc. (1965) p. 13.)
 ENR116 – Mod. 2- Slide No. 23

Influence of temperature on
impact energy
Ductile-to-Brittle Transition Temperature (DBTT)...
Impact Energy

FCC metals (e.g., Cu, Ni)

BCC metals (e.g., iron at T < 914

polymers

Brittle More Ductile

s y( > E/150)
High strength materials

Temperature
Ductile-to-brittle
transition temperature Adapted from Fig. 8.15,
Callister & Rethwisch 8e.

Design strategy:
Stay above the DBTT
Pre-WWII: The Titanic
Reprinted w/ permission from R.W. Hertzberg,
"Deformation and Fracture Mechanics of Engineering
Materials", (4th ed.) Fig. 7.1(a), p. 262, John Wiley
and Sons, Inc., 1996. (Orig. source: Dr. Robert D.
Ballard, The Discovery of the Titanic.)
Problem: Steels were used having DBTT’s just below RT
ENR116 – Mod. 2- Slide No. 24
WWII: Liberty ships
Reprinted w/ permission from R.W. Hertzberg,
"Deformation and Fracture Mechanics of Engineering
Materials", (4th ed.) Fig. 7.1(b), p. 262, John Wiley and
Sons, Inc., 1996. (Orig. source: Earl R. Parker,
"Behavior of Engineering Structures", Nat. Acad. Sci.,
Nat. Res. Council, John Wiley and Sons, Inc., NY, 1957.)
 ENR116 – Mod. 2- Slide No. 25

Summary

• Flaws act as stress concentrators that cause

failure at stresses lower than theoretical values.

• Sharp corners produce large stress

concentrations and premature failure.