Fracture mechanics

Microfracture redirects here. For the surgical tech- 1 Motivation

nique, see Microfracture surgery.
Fracture mechanics is the eld of mechanics concerned The processes of material manufacture, processing, ma-
chining, and forming may introduce aws in a nished
mechanical component. Arising from the manufacturing
process, interior and surface aws are found in all metal
structures. Not all such aws are unstable under service
conditions. Fracture mechanics is the analysis of aws to
discover those that are safe (that is, do not grow) and those
that are liable to propagate as cracks and so cause failure
of the awed structure. Despite these inherent aws, it
Mode I: Mode II: Mode III:
Opening In-plane shear Out-of-plane shear
is possible to achieve through damage tolerance analysis
the safe operation of a structure. Fracture mechanics as
a subject for critical study has barely been around for a
The three fracture modes century and thus is relatively new.[1][2]
Fracture mechanics should attempt to provide quantita-
with the study of the propagation of cracks in materials. tive answers to the following questions:[2]
It uses methods of analytical solid mechanics to calculate
the driving force on a crack and those of experimental 1. What is the strength of the component as a function
solid mechanics to characterize the materials resistance of crack size?
to fracture.
In modern materials science, fracture mechanics is an 2. What crack size can be tolerated under service load-
important tool used to improve the performance of me- ing, i.e. what is the maximum permissible crack
chanical components. It applies the physics of stress size?
and strain behavior of materials, in particular the the-
ories of elasticity and plasticity, to the microscopic 3. How long does it take for a crack to grow from a cer-
crystallographic defects found in real materials in order tain initial size, for example the minimum detectable
to predict the macroscopic mechanical behavior of those crack size, to the maximum permissible crack size?
bodies. Fractography is widely used with fracture me-
chanics to understand the causes of failures and also ver- 4. What is the service life of a structure when a certain
ify the theoretical failure predictions with real life fail- pre-existing aw size (e.g. a manufacturing defect)
ures. The prediction of crack growth is at the heart of the is assumed to exist?
damage tolerance mechanical design discipline.
5. During the period available for crack detection how
There are three ways of applying a force to enable a crack often should the structure be inspected for cracks?
to propagate:

Mode I fracture Opening mode (a tensile stress 2 Linear elastic fracture mechanics
normal to the plane of the crack),
2.1 Griths criterion
Mode II fracture Sliding mode (a shear stress act- Fracture mechanics was developed during World War I
ing parallel to the plane of the crack and perpendic- by English aeronautical engineer, A. A. Grith, to ex-
ular to the crack front), and plain the failure of brittle materials.[3] Griths work was
motivated by two contradictory facts:
Mode III fracture Tearing mode (a shear stress
acting parallel to the plane of the crack and parallel The stress needed to fracture bulk glass is around
to the crack front). 100 MPa (15,000 psi).

1
2 2 LINEAR ELASTIC FRACTURE MECHANICS

An explanation of this relation in terms of linear elastic-

ity theory is problematic. Linear elasticity theory pre-
dicts that stress (and hence the strain) at the tip of a sharp
aw in a linear elastic material is innite. To avoid that
problem, Grith developed a thermodynamic approach
to explain the relation that he observed.
The growth of a crack, the extension of the surfaces on ei-
ther side of the crack, requires an increase in the surface
energy. Grith found an expression for the constant C
in terms of the surface energy of the crack by solving
the elasticity problem of a nite crack in an elastic plate.
Briey, the approach was:

Compute the potential energy stored in a perfect

specimen under a uniaxial tensile load.

Fix the boundary so that the applied load does no

work and then introduce a crack into the specimen.
The crack relaxes the stress and hence reduces the
elastic energy near the crack faces. On the other
hand, the crack increases the total surface energy of
the specimen.

Compute the change in the free energy (surface en-

ergy elastic energy) as a function of the crack
length. Failure occurs when the free energy attains
a peak value at a critical crack length, beyond which
the free energy decreases as the crack length in-
creases, i.e. by causing fracture. Using this proce-
dure, Grith found that
An edge crack (aw) of length a in a material

2E
C=
The theoretical stress needed for breaking atomic
bonds of glass is approximately 10,000 MPa
where E is the Youngs modulus of the material and
(1,500,000 psi).
is the surface energy density of the material. Assuming
E = 62 GPa and = 1 J/m2 gives excellent agreement
A theory was needed to reconcile these conicting obser- of Griths predicted fracture stress with experimental
vations. Also, experiments on glass bers that Grith results for glass.
himself conducted suggested that the fracture stress in-
creases as the ber diameter decreases. Hence the uni-
axial tensile strength, which had been used extensively 2.2 Irwins modication
to predict material failure before Grith, could not be
a specimen-independent material property. Grith sug- Plastic zone Plastic zone
gested that the low fracture strength observed in experi-
ments, as well as the size-dependence of strength, was due
Crack Crack
to the presence of microscopic aws in the bulk material.
To verify the aw hypothesis, Grith introduced an ar-
ticial aw in his experimental glass specimens. The ar-
ticial aw was in the form of a surface crack which was Plane Strain Plane Stress
much larger than other aws in a specimen. The experi-
ments showed that the product of the square root of the
The plastic zone around a crack tip in a ductile material
aw length (a) and the stress at fracture ( ) was nearly
constant, which is expressed by the equation:
Griths work was largely ignored by the
engineering community until the early 1950s.
f a C The reasons for this appear to be (a) in the
2.3 Stress intensity factor 3

actual structural materials the level of energy 2.3 Stress intensity factor
needed to cause fracture is orders of magnitude
higher than the corresponding surface energy, Main article: Stress intensity factor
and (b) in structural materials there are always
some inelastic deformations around the crack Another signicant achievement of Irwin and his col-
front that would make the assumption of linear leagues was to nd a method of calculating the amount
elastic medium with innite stresses at the crack of energy available for fracture in terms of the asymp-
tip highly unrealistic. [4] totic stress and displacement elds around a crack front
in a linear elastic solid.[5] This asymptotic expression for
Griths theory provides excellent agreement with exper-
the stress eld around a crack tip is
imental data for brittle materials such as glass. For
ductile
materials such as steel, although the relation y a = C
still holds, the surface energy () predicted by Griths ( )
K
theory is usually unrealistically high. A group working ij fij ()
under G. R. Irwin[5] at the U.S. Naval Research Labora- 2r
tory (NRL) during World War II realized that plasticity
where are the Cauchy stresses, r is the distance from
must play a signicant role in the fracture of ductile ma-
the crack tip, is the angle with respect to the plane of
terials.
the crack, and f are functions that depend on the crack
In ductile materials (and even in materials that appear geometry and loading conditions. Irwin called the quan-
to be brittle[6] ), a plastic zone develops at the tip of the tity K the stress intensity factor. Since the quantity f is
crack. As the applied load increases, the plastic zone in- dimensionless, the stress intensity factor can be expressed

creases in size until the crack grows and the elastically in units of MPa m .
strained material behind the crack tip unloads. The plas-
When a rigid line inclusion is considered, a similar
tic loading and unloading cycle near the crack tip leads
asymptotic expression for the stress elds is obtained.
to the dissipation of energy as heat. Hence, a dissipative
term has to be added to the energy balance relation de-
vised by Grith for brittle materials. In physical terms, 2.4 Strain energy release
additional energy is needed for crack growth in ductile
materials as compared to brittle materials. Main article: Strain energy release rate
Irwins strategy was to partition the energy into two parts:
Irwin was the rst to observe that if the size of the plastic
the stored elastic strain energy which is released as zone around a crack is small compared to the size of the
a crack grows. This is the thermodynamic driving crack, the energy required to grow the crack will not be
force for fracture. critically dependent on the state of stress (the plastic zone)
[4]
the dissipated energy which includes plastic dissipa- at the crack tip. In other words, a purely elastic solution
tion and the surface energy (and any other dissipa- may be used to calculate the amount of energy available
tive forces that may be at work). The dissipated en- for fracture.
ergy provides the thermodynamic resistance to frac- The energy release rate for crack growth or strain energy
ture. Then the total energy is release rate may then be calculated as the change in elastic
strain energy per unit area of crack growth, i.e.,
G = 2 + Gp
where is the surface energy and G is the plastic dissi- [ ] [ ]
pation (and dissipation from other sources) per unit area U U
of crack growth. G := =
a a
P u
The modied version of Griths energy criterion can
then be written as where U is the elastic energy of the system and a is the
crack length. Either the load P or the displacement u are
constant while evaluating the above expressions.
EG Irwin showed that for a mode I crack (opening mode) the
f a = . strain energy release rate and the stress intensity factor

are related by:
For brittle materials such as glass, the surface energy term
dominates and G 2 = 2 J/m2 . For ductile mate-
rials such as steel, the plastic dissipation term dominates 2
K
I
and G Gp = 1000 J/m . For polymers close to the
2 stress plane
E
glass transition temperature, we have intermediate values G = GI = (1 2 )K 2
2 I
strain plane
of G between 2 and 1000 J/m . E
4 2 LINEAR ELASTIC FRACTURE MECHANICS

where E is the Youngs modulus, is Poissons ratio, gives the approximate ideal radius of the plastic zone de-
and KI is the stress intensity factor in mode I. Irwin also formation beyond the crack tip, which is useful to many
showed that the strain energy release rate of a planar crack structural scientists because it gives a good estimate of
in a linear elastic body can be expressed in terms of the how the material behaves when subjected to stress. In
mode I, mode II (sliding mode), and mode III (tearing the above equation, the parameters of the stress intensity
mode) stress intensity factors for the most general load- factor and indicator of material toughness, KC , and the
ing conditions. yield stress, Y , are of importance because they illustrate
Next, Irwin adopted the additional assumption that the many things about the material and its properties, as well
as about the plastic zone size. For example, if KC is high,
size and shape of the energy dissipation zone remains
approximately constant during brittle fracture. This as- then it can be deduced that the material is tough, whereas
if Y is high, one knows that the material is more ductile.
sumption suggests that the energy needed to create a unit
fracture surface is a constant that depends only on the ma- The ratio of these two parameters is important to the ra-
dius of the plastic zone. For instance, if Y is small, then
terial. This new material property was given the name
fracture toughness and designated GI . Today, it is the the squared ratio of KC to Y is large, which results in
a larger plastic radius. This implies that the material can
critical stress intensity factor KI , found in the plane strain
condition, which is accepted as the dening property in plastically deform, and, therefore, is tough.[9] This esti-
linear elastic fracture mechanics. mate of the size of the plastic zone beyond the crack tip
can then be used to more accurately analyze how a mate-
rial will behave in the presence of a crack.
2.5 Crack tip plastic zone The same process as described above for a single event
loading also applies and to cyclic loading. If a crack is
In theory the stress at the crack tip where the radius is present in a specimen that undergoes cyclic loading, the
nearly zero, would tend to innity. This would be con- specimen will plastically deform at the crack tip and delay
sidered a stress singularity, which is not possible in real- the crack growth. In the event of an overload or excur-
world applications. In actuality, the stress concentration sion, this model changes slightly to accommodate the sud-
at the tip of a crack within real materials has been found den increase in stress from that which the material previ-
to have a nite value but larger than the nominal stress ously experienced. At a suciently high load (overload),
applied to the specimen. An equation giving the stresses the crack grows out of the plastic zone that contained it
near a crack tip is given below: and leaves behind the pocket of the original plastic de-
formation. Now, assuming that the overload stress is not
( ) suciently high as to completely fracture the specimen,
c
l = 1 + Y the crack will undergo further plastic deformation around
2r
the new crack tip, enlarging the zone of residual plastic
The stress near the crack tip, l , is dependent on the nom- stresses. This process further toughens and prolongs the
inal applied stress, and a correction factor, Y (which life of the material because the new plastic zone is larger
depends on the geometry of the specimen), and is in- than what it would be under the usual stress conditions.
versely dependent on the radial distance ( r ) from the This allows the material to undergo more cycles of load-
crack tip. Nevertheless, there must be some sort of mech- ing. This idea can be illustrated further by the graph of
anism or property of the material that prevents such a Aluminum with a center crack undergoing overloading
crack from propagating spontaneously. The assumption events.[10]
is, the plastic deformation at the crack tip eectively
blunts the crack tip. This deformation depends primarily
on the applied stress in the applicable direction (in most 2.6 Fracture toughness tests
cases, this is the y-direction of a regular Cartesian co-
ordinate system), the crack length, and the geometry of Main article: Fracture toughness
the specimen.[7] To estimate how this plastic deformation
zone extended from the crack tip, George Irwin equated
the yield strength of the material to the far-eld stresses
of the y-direction along the crack (x direction) and solved 2.7 Limitations
for the eective radius. From this relationship, Irwin de-
veloped the following expression for the idealized radius But a problem arose for the NRL researchers because
of the zone of plastic deformation at the crack tip: naval materials, e.g., ship-plate steel, are not perfectly
elastic but undergo signicant plastic deformation at the
2 tip of a crack. One basic assumption in Irwins linear elas-
KC
rp = tic fracture mechanics is small scale yielding, the condi-
2Y2 tion that the size of the plastic zone is small compared
Models of ideal materials have shown that this zone of to the crack length. However, this assumption is quite
plasticity is centered at the crack tip.[8] This equation restrictive for certain types of failure in structural steels
3.1 CTOD 5

the local conditions for initial crack growth which

include the nucleation, growth, and coalescence of
voids (decohesion) at a crack tip.

a global energy balance criterion for further crack

growth and unstable fracture.

3.1 CTOD

Historically, the rst parameter for the determination of

fracture toughness in the elasto-plastic region was the
crack tip opening displacement (CTOD) or opening at
the apex of the crack indicated. This parameter was de-
The S.S. Schenectady split apart by brittle fracture while in har- termined by Wells during the studies of structural steels
bor, 1943. which, due to the high toughness could not be character-
ized with the linear elastic fracture mechanics model. He
noted that, before the fracture happened, the walls of the
though such steels can be prone to brittle fracture, which crack were leaving and that the crack tip, after fracture,
has led to a number of catastrophic failures. ranged from acute to rounded o due to plastic deforma-
Linear-elastic fracture mechanics is of limited practical tion. In addition, the rounding of the crack tip was more
use for structural steels and Fracture toughness testing can pronounced in steels with superior toughness.
be expensive. There are a number of alternative denitions of CTOD.
The two most common denitions, CTOD is the dis-
placement at the original crack tip and the 90 degree in-
3 Elasticplastic fracture mechan- tercept. The latter denition was suggested by Rice and
ics is commonly used to infer CTOD in nite element mod-
els of such. Note that these two denitions are equivalent
if the crack tip blunts in a semicircle.
Most laboratory measurements of CTOD have been
made on edge-cracked specimens loaded in three-point
bending. Early experiments used a at paddle-shaped
gage that was inserted into the crack; as the crack opened,
the paddle gage rotated, and an electronic signal was sent
to an x-y plotter. This method was inaccurate, however,
because it was dicult to reach the crack tip with the pad-
dle gage. Today, the displacement V at the crack mouth
is measured, and the CTOD is inferred by assuming the
specimen halves are rigid and rotate about a hinge point
(the crack tip).
Vertical stabilizer, which separated from American Airlines
Flight 587, leading to a fatal crash
3.2 R-curve
Most engineering materials show some nonlinear elastic
and inelastic behavior under operating conditions that in- An early attempt in the direction of elastic-plastic frac-
volve large loads. In such materials the assumptions of ture mechanics was Irwins crack extension resistance
linear elastic fracture mechanics may not hold, that is, curve, Crack growth resistance curve or R-curve. This
curve acknowledges the fact that the resistance to frac-
the plastic zone at a crack tip may have a size of the ture increases with growing crack size in elastic-plastic
same order of magnitude as the crack size materials. The R-curve is a plot of the total energy dissi-
pation rate as a function of the crack size and can be used
the size and shape of the plastic zone may change as to examine the processes of slow stable crack growth and
the applied load is increased and also as the crack unstable fracture. However, the R-curve was not widely
length increases. used in applications until the early 1970s. The main rea-
sons appear to be that the R-curve depends on the geom-
Therefore, a more general theory of crack growth is etry of the specimen and the crack driving force may be
needed for elastic-plastic materials that can account for: dicult to calculate.[4]
6 4 CRACK TIP CONSTRAINT UNDER LARGE SCALE YIELDING

3.3 J-integral 3.5 Transition aw size

Main article: J-integral

In the mid-1960s James R. Rice (then at Brown Uni-

versity) and G. P. Cherepanov independently developed
a new toughness measure to describe the case where
there is sucient crack-tip deformation that the part
no longer obeys the linear-elastic approximation. Rices
analysis, which assumes non-linear elastic (or monotonic
deformation theory plastic) deformation ahead of the
crack tip, is designated the J-integral.[11] This analysis
is limited to situations where plastic deformation at the
crack tip does not extend to the furthest edge of the
loaded part. It also demands that the assumed non-linear
elastic behavior of the material is a reasonable approxi-
mation in shape and magnitude to the real materials load Failure stress as a function of crack size
response. The elastic-plastic failure parameter is desig-
nated JI and is conventionally converted to KI using
Let a material have a yield strength Y and a fracture
Equation (3.1) of the Appendix to this article. Also note
toughness in mode I KIC . Based on fracture mechanics,
that the J integral approach reduces to the Grith theory
the material will fail at stress f ail = KIC / a . Based
for linear-elastic behavior.
on plasticity, the material will yield when f ail = Y
The mathematical denition of J-integral is as follows: . These curves intersect when a = KIC 2
/Y2 . This
value of a is called as transition aw size at ., and de-
ij pends on the material properties of the structure. When
ui
J= (w dy Ti ds) with w= ij dij the a < at , the failure is governed by plastic yielding,
x 0
and when a > at the failure is governed by fracture me-
where chanics. The value of at for engineering alloys is 100
mm and for ceramics is 0.001 mm. If we assume that
is an arbitrary path clockwise around the manufacturing processes can give rise to aws in the or-
apex of the crack, der of micrometers, then, it can be seen that ceramics are
w is the density of strain energy, more likely to fail by fracture, whereas engineering alloys
Ti are the components of the vectors of trac- would fail by plastic deformation.
tion,
ui the components of the displacement vectors,
ds and an incremental length along the path 4 Crack tip constraint under large
, an
scale yielding
ij and ij are the stress and strain tensors.
Under small-scale yielding conditions, a single parameter
3.4 Cohesive zone models (e.g., K, J, or CTOD) characterizes crack tip conditions
and can be used as a geometry-independent fracture crite-
When a signicant region around a crack tip has under- rion. Single-parameter fracture mechanics breaks down
gone plastic deformation, other approaches can be used to in the presence of excessive plasticity, and when the frac-
determine the possibility of further crack extension and ture toughness depends on the size and geometry of the
the direction of crack growth and branching. A simple test specimen. The theories used for large scale yielding
technique that is easily incorporated into numerical calcu- is not very standardized. The following theories and ap-
lations is the cohesive zone model method which is based proaches are commonly used among researchers in this
on concepts proposed independently by Barenblatt[12] and eld.
Dugdale[13] in the early 1960s. The relationship between
the Dugdale-Barenblatt models and Griths theory was
rst discussed by Willis in 1967.[14] The equivalence of 4.1 J-Q Theory
the two approaches in the context of brittle fracture was
shown by Rice in 1968.[11] Interest in cohesive zone mod- By using FEM, one can establish a parameter Q to mod-
eling of fracture has been reignited since 2000 follow- ify the stress eld for a better solution when the plas-
ing the pioneering work on dynamic fracture by Xu and tic zone is growing. The new stress eld is: ij =
Needleman,[15] and Camacho and Ortiz.[16] (ij ) + Q ij yield where ij = 1 for i = j and 0
6.1 Griths criterion 7

if not. Q usually takes values from 3 to +2. A negative 6.1 Griths criterion
value greatly changes the geometry of the plastic zone.
For the simple case of a thin rectangular plate with a crack
The J-Q-M theory includes another parameter, the mis-
perpendicular to the load Griths theory becomes:
match parameter, which is used for welds to make up for
the change in toughness of the weld metal (WM), base 2
metal (BM) and heat aected zone (HAZ). This value G = E a (1.1)
is interpreted to the formula in a similar way as the Q-
parameter, and the two are usually assumed to be inde- where G is the strain energy release rate, is the applied
pendent of each other. stress, a is half the crack length, and E is the Youngs
modulus, which for the case of plane strain should be di-
vided by the plate stiness factor (1-^2). The strain en-
4.2 T-term eects ergy release rate can otherwise be understood as: the rate
at which energy is absorbed by growth of the crack.
As an alternative to J-Q theory, a parameter T can be
However, we also have that:
used. This only changes the normal stress in the x-
direction (and the z-direction in the case of plane strain).
f2 a
T does not require the use of FEM, but is derived from Gc = E (1.2)
constraint. It can be argued that T is limited to LEFM,
but as the plastic zone change due to T never reaches the If G Gc , this is the criterion for which the crack will
actual crack surface (except on the tip), its validity holds begin to propagate.
true not only under small scale yielding. The parameter
T also signicantly inuences on the fracture initiation in
brittle materials using maximum tangential strain fracture 6.2 Irwins modications
criterion, as found by the researchers at Texas A&M Uni-
versity.[17] It is found that both parameter T and Poissons Eventually a modication of Griths solids theory
ratio of the material play important roles in prediction of emerged from this work; a term called stress intensity re-
the crack propagation angle and the mixed mode fracture placed strain energy release rate and a term called fracture
toughness of the materials. toughness replaced surface weakness energy. Both of
these terms are simply related to the energy terms that
Grith used:
5 Engineering applications
KI = a (2.1)
The following information is needed for a fracture me-
chanics prediction of failure: and

Applied load Kc = EGc (for plane stress) (2.2)

Residual stress Kc = EGc
(for plane strain) (2.3)
1 2

Size and shape of the part

Size, shape, location, and orientation of the crack
Usually not all of this information is available and con-
servative assumptions have to be made.
Occasionally post-mortem fracture-mechanics analyses
are carried out. In the absence of an extreme overload,
the causes are either insucient toughness (KI ) or an ex-
cessively large crack that was not detected during routine
inspection.
6 Appendix: mathematical rela- cracked
tions
where KI is the stress intensity, Kc the fracture toughness,
and is Poissons ratio. It is important to recognize the
fact that fracture parameter K has dierent values when
measured under plane stress and plane strain
Fracture occurs when KI Kc . For the special case of
plane strain deformation, Kc becomes KIc and is consid-
ered a material property. The subscript I arises because
of the dierent ways of loading a material to enable a
crack to propagate. It refers to so-called mode I load-
ing as opposed to mode II or III:
We must note that the expression for KI in equation 2.1
will be dierent for geometries other than the center-
innite plate, as discussed in the article on the
stress intensity factor. Consequently, it is necessary to
introduce a dimensionless correction factor, Y, in order
to characterize the geometry. We thus have:
8 7 APPLICATIONS OF FRACTURE MECHANICS

KI = Y a (2.4) so to allow a redistribution of stress at those discontinu-
ities avoiding a brittle fracture. However, the investiga-
where Y is a function of the crack length and width of tion of failed components demonstrate such assumptions
sheet given by: to often be incorrect and that crack growth started be-
cause of such discontinuities.
( a ) ( a ) Fracture mechanics follows one of two design principles:
Y W = sec W (2.5)
either fail-safe or safe-life. In fail-safe mode, even if a
component fails, the entire structure is not at risk due
for a sheet of nite width W containing a through- to load path redundancy; this may lead to complicated
thickness crack of length 2a, or and heavy structures. The safe-life principle dictates that
throughout the life of the structure, no component of the
(a) ( a )2 structure may fail. This may lead to single load paths, but
Y W = 1.12 W + W
0.41 a 18.7

(2.6) requires a more detailed analysis that employs fracture

mechanics to ensure no failure during the dened life-
time. Fracture mechanics estimates the maximum length
for a sheet of nite width W containing a through- of crack that a material can withstand before it fails using
thickness edge crack of length a an analysis that takes into consideration the overall di-
mensions of the structure, the stresses where crack initia-
tion takes place, notch toughness of the material (a mea-
6.3 Elasticity and plasticity sure of the ability of a material to absorb energy before
the crack extends) K , the behavior of materials under
Since engineers became accustomed to using KI to char-
the action of stresses giving a stress intensity factor (K),
acterise fracture toughness, a relation has been used to
fatigue crack growth, and stress corrosion crack growth.
reduce JI to it:
As with basic solid mechanics analysis, the stresses in the
component should be lower than the yield stress. By anal-
KIc = E JIc where E = E for plane ogy, the stress intensity factor, K, should be less than the
stress and E = 1E
2 for plane strain (3.1) critical stress intensity factor K . Ultimately, a safe-life
analysis leads to a prediction of the lifetime of a compo-
The remainder of the mathematics employed in this ap- nent with an approriate degree of condence. The main
proach is interesting, but is probably better summarised conclusions of fracture mechanics analysis to a design are
in external pages due to its complex nature. the proper material selection, eect of defects, failure
analysis, and development of time schedules to monitor
components for cracks. Fracture analysis includes the us-
7 Applications of fracture mechan- age of mathematical models such as linear elastic fracture
mechanics (LEFM), crack opening displacement (COD)
ics and J-integral approaches by using nite element analysis
(FEM).
The design process for a component consists of choos- The relationship used for estimating stress intensity factor
ing the appropriate geometry, the necessary material is
strength, the temperature of usage and method of struc-
tural analysis (Testing and FEM analysis), so as to ensure
that it does not fail under load. The methodologies fol-
K = c a
lowed in design criteria traditionally involve the selection
of materials based on standard data and as per the loading where c a constant that depends on crack and specimen
conditions proportioning the geometry of the components dimensions, the applied stress, and a the crack length.
on the basis of an analysis. This method is not applica-
ble for some new innovation like usage of new material The above relation is very general and as per the shape of
in design. Another method followed is that as per the the crack, relations available in standard references are to
loading conditions, static analysis is done for the structure be used, standard shapes of cracks approximating actual
taking into account the forces acting on each component, cracks can be used.
material strength and geometry. The material strength is For a given material the value of K is dependent on the
chosen keeping in mind the factor of safety, i.e. the com- applied stresses and aw size. The aw sized that will
ponent is designed to withstand an ultimate load (where cause crack extension decreases as the stress increases.
it fails) greater than the load under which it will operate. Thus by chosing two of the three parameters (K, a and
A general assumption in the design criteria is the lack of ) the design is constrained by the remaining unknown.
discontinuities, i.e. no defects or cracks in the material, Even so, there are other parameters that aect the life
and even in the presence of such discontinuities the mate- of a component, such as working temperature, repeated
rial is assumed to have sucient ductility to yield locally loading (fatigue), residual stress, and stress concentration
9.1 Notes 9

eects. If a material is chosen, that will x the value of 9.1 Notes

the critical notch toughness K value. If a value of the
minimum size crack length, a, is also selected, that allows [1] T.L. Anderson (1995). Fracture Mechanics: Funda-
the solution for the stress near the crack below which mentals and Applications. CRC Press. ISBN 978-
the component must be kept. The latter allows the sizing 0849316562.
of the component. [2] H.L. Ewalds; R.J.H. Wanhill (1984). Fracture Mechan-
Designers try to decrease the defects in the component ics. Edward Arnold and Delftse Uitgevers Maatschappij.
ISBN 0-7131-3515-8.
arising in manufacturing processes by following good fab-
rication processes and inspection, and estimate notch- [3] Grith, A. A. (1921), The phenomena of rup-
toughness values (K ) of materials using methods like ture and ow in solids (PDF), Philosophical
charpy V-notch impact test, or drop weight tests. In many Transactions of the Royal Society of London, A,
investigations it was proved that the material failed at a K 221: 163198, Bibcode:1921RSPTA.221..163G,
value very much lower than the critical stress intensity doi:10.1098/rsta.1921.0006.
factor because of defects in the material or micro cracks. [4] E. Erdogan (2000) Fracture Mechanics, International
Analysis proved that for any component there are two Journal of Solids and Structures, 37, pp. 171183.
phases for crack development, i.e. crack initiation and
second phase crack growth until failure. Of the two, the [5] Irwin G (1957), Analysis of stresses and strains near the
rst phase covers a larger percentage of fatigue life, and end of a crack traversing a plate, Journal of Applied Me-
under very large high cycle loading conditions the second chanics 24, 361364.
phase is very short. [6] Orowan, E., 1948. Fracture and strength of solids. Re-
The factor (K/) is used for the initial design of a com- ports on Progress in Physics XII, 185232.
ponent because it estimates crack size. But how large [7] Weisshaar, Terry (July 28, 2011). Aerospace Structures-
this factor has to be is decided by considering type of the an Introduction to Fundamental Problems. West
structure, frequency of inspection, accessibility to inspec- Lafayette, IN: Purdue University.
tion, design life of the structure, consequences of failure,
probability of over-load, methods of fabrication, required [8] Crack Tip Plastic Zone Size. Handbook for Damage
quality, material cost in addition to the results obtained by Tolerant Design. LexTech, Inc. Retrieved 20 November
2016.
fracture mechanics analysis.
[9] Weisshaar, Terry (July 28, 2011). Aerospace Structures-
an Introduction to Fundamental Problems. West
Lafayette, IN: Purdue University.
8 See also
[10] Retardation. Handbook for Damage Tolerant Design.
LexTech, Inc. Retrieved 20 November 2016.
AFGROW Fracture mechanics and fatigue crack
growth analysis software [11] Rice, J. R. (1968), A path independent integral and
the approximate analysis of strain concentration by
Concrete fracture analysis notches and cracks (PDF), Journal of Applied Me-
chanics, 35: 379386, Bibcode:1968JAM....35..379R,
Earthquake doi:10.1115/1.3601206.

[12] Barenblatt, G. I. (1962), The mathematical theory

Fatigue
of equilibrium cracks in brittle fracture, Advances
in Applied Mechanics, 7: 55129, doi:10.1016/s0065-
Fault (geology) 2156(08)70121-2

Peridynamics, a numerical method to solve fracture [13] Dugdale, D. S. (1960), Yielding of steel sheets con-
mechanics problems taining slits, Journal of the Mechanics and Physics of
Solids, 8 (2): 100104, Bibcode:1960JMPSo...8..100D,
Shock (mechanics) doi:10.1016/0022-5096(60)90013-2

[14] Willis, J. R. (1967), A comparison of the fracture

Strength of materials criteria of Grith and Barenblatt, Journal of the
Mechanics and Physics of Solids, 15 (3): 151162,
Stress corrosion cracking Bibcode:1967JMPSo..15..151W, doi:10.1016/0022-
5096(67)90029-4.
Structural Fracture Mechanics
[15] Xu, X.P.; Needleman, A. (1994), Numerical simulations
of fast crack growth in brittle solids, Journal of the
Mechanics and Physics of Solids, 42 (9): 13971434,
9 References Bibcode:1994JMPSo..42.1397X, doi:10.1016/0022-
5096(94)90003-5
10 11 EXTERNAL LINKS

[16] Camacho, G. T.; Ortiz, M. (1996), Computational mod- Fracturemechanics.org by Dr. Bob McGinty, Mer-
elling of impact damage in brittle materials, International cer University
Journal of Solids and Structures, 33 (20-22): 28992938,
doi:10.1016/0020-7683(95)00255-3 Fracture mechanics course notes by Prof. Rui
Huang, Univ. of Texas
[17] Mirsayar, M. M., Mixed mode fracture analysis using ex-
tended maximum tangential strain criterion, Materials & Application of Fracture Mechanics on keytomet-
Design, 2015, doi:10.1016/j.matdes.2015.07.135. als.com

9.2 Bibliography
C. P. Buckley, Material Failure, Lecture Notes
(2005), University of Oxford.

10 Further reading
Davidge, R.W., Mechanical Behavior of Ceramics,
Cambridge Solid State Science Series, (1979)

Demaid, Adrian, Fail Safe, Open University (2004)

Green, D., An Introduction to the Mechanical Prop-

erties of Ceramics, Cambridge Solid State Science
Series, Eds. Clarke, D.R., Suresh, S., Ward, I.M.
(1998)

Lawn, B.R., Fracture of Brittle Solids, Cambridge

Solid State Science Series, 2nd Edn. (1993)

Farahmand, B., Bockrath, G., and Glassco, J.

(1997) Fatigue and Fracture Mechanics of High-Risk
Parts, Chapman & Hall.

Chen, X., Mai, Y.-W., Fracture Mechanics of Elec-

tromagnetic Materials: Nonlinear Field Theory and
Applications, Imperial College Press, (2012)

A.N. Gent, W.V. Mars, In: James E. Mark, Burak

Erman and Mike Roland, Editor(s), Chapter 10
Strength of Elastomers, The Science and Technology
of Rubber, Fourth edition, Academic Press, Boston,
2013, pp. 473516, ISBN 9780123945846,
10.1016/B978-0-12-394584-6.00010-8

Zehnder, Alan. Fracture Mechanics, SpringerLink,

(2012).

11 External links
Fracture Mechanics on eFunda site

Nonlinear Fracture Mechanics Notes by Prof. John

Hutchinson, Harvard University

Notes on Fracture of Thin Films and Multilayers by

Prof. John Hutchinson, Harvard University

Fracture Mechanics by Prof. Piet Schreurs, TU

Eindhoven, Netherlands
 11

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