Theories of Failure.

Mir Aamir Abbas

 Introduction
• I have been working in the industry for more than a decade
now and I wish to share some things with the reader that I
have observed.
• Material failure theories are an important part of the
knowledge of a mechanical Design and analysis engineer
and is a frequently discussed topic in interviews. The basic
concept of stress is well known (I will assume the reader
already knows it). We material failure occurs when stress
exceeds the critical value. Why then is it necessary to know
the failure theories? It is because there are many different
types of “stresses” and you should know when to use which
one. They come under the category of failure criteria. Now
let us see how it works with examples.
 Introduction
• There are 6 theories of failure for isotropic
materials but only 2 are popular.
• I will deal with only the two popular ones.
 Example1

Fig.1
Consider a rod being pulled by a tensile force and a normal
stress of 200 MPa is induced. The yield strength of the
material is 150 MPa and the ultimate strength is 280 MPa.
Will the rod fail? Since the induced stress is greater than
yield, the rod will yield but since the induced stress is less
than the ultimate strength, it will not rupture. This one
was a sitter. In this case, normal stress, principal stress and
von Mises stress are the equal . This stress state occurs in
the mechanical tensile specimen material test.
 Example 2

Fig.2
Consider the system shown in fig.2: a brittle block of ultimate
strength 250 MPa being compressed by pressure of 200 MPa
on two of faces sides. Let us assume the block is thick enough
in the plane perpendicular to the screen to avoid buckling and
also that the contact between the walls and the block is
frictionless (we have decided to ignore friction). The stress
state in 2D would be as shown in fig.3where stresses normal to
x, Sx and stresses normal to y, Sy are both 200 MPa.
 Example 2 ( continued)
Now, we have to decide whether the block
is safe from rupture or not. The dilemma
for a person not knowing the failure
theories might be: 200 MPa is less than
the ultimate stress of 250 MPa but there
are two such stress, Sx and Sy. Singularly
they may not cause failure but collectively
Fig.3
will they cause failure (after all 200+200=
400 MPa and if you have a good
imagination: you may even try square root
of sum of squares)? Using failure theories
we can answer such questions.
 Example 2 ( continued...)
The answer is: no. They will
not cause rupture. The
principal stress state is shown
in fig.4. Fig.4

According to the maximum principal stress theory which is

most popular for rupture of brittle materials, the magnitude
of maximum or the minimum principal stresses must be
greater than the ultimate strength of the material. Since the
principal stress is less than the ultimate strength of the
material, it will not rupture…..
Note: here is assumed that the reader is conversant with the concepts of
principal stresses and principal planes!
 Example 3
This is the same as example 2 except
that the brittle block is replaced by a
block of ductile material of yield
strength 220 MPa and ultimate strength
350 MPa. The system is shown in fig.5 Fig.5
Since the mechanics of the problem are not changing, the stress state is the same as the
previous example but the material is different and ductile. Will it yield? Will it rupture?
The most commonly used failure theory for yielding of ductile isotropic materials is the
von Mises theory. As per this theory, failure occurs when the induced von Mises stress
exceeds a critical value. When the third principal stress = 0,
S1 = 200 MPa, S2 = 200 MPa
von Mises stress,
Sv = 200 MPa
Since the von Mises stress is less than the yield stress, the block is safe from yielding.
Note: the formula to calculate the von Mises stress is not shown here and
can be referred to in a text book. Also S1=S2=Sv is a coincidence.
 Example 4
• Consider the same problem with the block being made of material with
yield point 120 MPa and ultimate stress = 210 MPa.
• As in the previous example, the von Mises stress is 200 MPa. So yielding
will occur.
• But sometimes we are okay with yielding but not rupture, then we have to
evaluate whether rupture would occur. This is where things are not very
clear. The failure criteria for rupture are not as clear as failure criteria for
yielding.
• Some researchers use strain based methods (the strain multiplied by a
function of the Davis triaxilality factor must exceed the rupture strain for
rupture to take place) but most engineers I have seen in the industry use
Principal stress obtained from a nonlinear analysis as the failure criterion
for rupture with the understanding that rupture occurs when the largest
principal stress exceeds the rupture strength. Alas! I remember one
telephonic interview where the interviewer was not pleased because
when asked for rupture criterion for ductile materials, I mentioned a strain
based criterion.
End.