International Journal of Fatigue 131 (2020) 105332

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International Journal of Fatigue

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijfatigue

Fatigue crack growth in a material with coarse brittle phases T

Hermann Riedel
Fraunhofer Institute for Mechanics of Materials IWM, Woehlerstraße 11, 79108 Freiburg, Germany

A R T I C LE I N FO A B S T R A C T

Keywords: The paper explores the effect of brittle particles on fatigue crack growth. A model based on the theory of slightly
Fatigue crack growth curved crack fronts predicts that fatigue crack growth is enhanced if the applied stress intensity factor is greater
Wavy crack front than the fracture toughness of the particles. In the other case, the crack front advances in the matrix before it can
Crack pinning traverse the particles (crack pinning). Below a certain stress intensity factor, the crack is completely arrested by
Aluminum alloys
the particles causing a fatigue threshold. The predictions are compared with experiments on Al alloys.
Silicon precipitates
Limitations of the linear perturbation theory are discussed.

1. Introduction
The present paper examines the influence of brittle particles on
fatigue crack growth in a ductile base material. If the fracture tough-
ness, KIc, of the particles is small, one expects that the growth rate is
enhanced, while particles with high fracture toughness will retard the
fatigue crack growth rate (‘crack pinning’). In both cases the crack front
will not remain straight, but it will advance ahead in a brittle phase
with low KIc, or lag behind in a phase with high KIc.
To describe the evolution of a curved crack front, a theory is needed
which relates the local stress intensity factor to the shape of the crack
front. In the present work, the classical model of Rice [1] and Gao and
Rice [2] is used, which is linear in the perturbation of the crack front,
and therefore limited to only slightly curved crack fronts. Extensions to
a quadratic approximation were worked out by Leblond et al. [3],
Vasoya et al. [4], Willis [5] and others, but the quadratic theory shares
certain qualitative shortcomings with the linear theory (see the Dis-
cussion section). A logical extension of the quadratic theory is the finite
perturbation method proposed by Rice [6] and worked out by Bower
and Ortiz [7,8], which yields accurate results for arbitrarily large
nonlinearity. A different approach, which also covers the whole range
of geometrical nonlinearities, is the boundary element method (Fares
[9]). Lazarus [10] reviews the literature on the subject.
The main motivation for the above-mentioned investigations was
the toughening of brittle ceramics by ceramic particles with higher
fracture toughness, e.g. ZrO2 particles in Al2O3. Unlike the work on
brittle particles in a brittle matrix, the present work is motivated by the
question how brittle particles influence the fatigue crack growth rate in
ductile alloys. Aluminum alloys with high silicon content, can serve as
an example. With increasing Si content, Al alloys contain more and
more Si particles, which improve the wear resistance, e.g. in piston
alloys. In the Al alloy with 12% Si shown in Fig. 1 the size and spacing
of the elemental Si particles are typically 40 µm and 120 µm, respec-
tively. However, one might suspect that the brittle particles deteriorate
the fatigue properties by enhancing the growth of fatigue cracks. On the
other hand, the particles might be beneficial by pinning the growing
fatigue crack front. These questions will be addressed in the present
paper.
The final goal of the analysis is to model fatigue crack growth in a
material with circular particles. However, the numerical method de-
veloped for that purpose is not straightforward and needs confirmation
by an independent, possibly analytical method. Therefore the first
modeling step is to develop a closed-form solution for a stripe model
(Section 4), in which the brittle phase forms periodically spaced stripes.
In Section 6 the numerical method is described. After the validation of
the numerical approach for the stripe model, it is used to simulate crack
growth in the circular-particle model (Section 7). Another reason to
study the stripe model is that there are materials with a lamellar mi-
crostructure of brittle and ductile phases, e.g. TiAl [11]. Further Patinet
et al. [12] test and analyze a stripe geometry as a model system of an
interface in a multilayer structure.
2. Description of the model
Fig. 2 shows two types of geometrical models considered in this
paper. The brittle phase can either form periodically spaced stripes with
width d and spacing λ (Fig. 2a), or it may form circular particles with
diameter d and spacing λ (Fig. 2b). A crack lying in the y = 0 plane
grows in the positive x direction. In the example shown here the crack
advances faster in the brittle phase and stays behind in the ductile
phase, i.e. the fracture toughness is assumed to be small.

E-mail address: hermann.riedel@iwm.fraunhofer.de.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijfatigue.2019.105332
Received 8 August 2019; Received in revised form 8 October 2019; Accepted 10 October 2019
Available online 12 October 2019
0142-1123/ © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
H. Riedel International Journal of Fatigue 131 (2020) 105332

4. Steady-state solutions for the stripe model

In the brittle stripes the stress intensity factor must be constant and
pore equal to the fracture toughness of the brittle phase, KIc. If we consider a
steady-state situation in which the crack preserves its shape while it
advances, the stress intensity factor should be constant also in the
ductile phase with the still unknown value K duc . Hence
Si particle
d d
⎧ KIc for 0 < z < 2
and λ − 2
<z<λ
K (z ) = d d
⎨ K duc for <z<λ−
⎩ 2 2 (7)
For n ≥ 1 the Fourier coefficients for this piecewise constant func-
tion are
K duc − KIc 2 πdn ⎞
kn = sin ⎛
Fig. 1. Microstructure of AlSi12CuNiMg-T7 with Si particles (dark grey), fine K 0 (a0 ) πn ⎝ λ ⎠ (8)
intermetallic phases in the Al grains and pores (black). Examples are encircled.
The stress intensity factor in the ductile phase follows from the re-
Courtesy C. Fischer, Fraunhofer-IWM, Freiburg.
quirement that the average of K(z) should be equal to K 0 (a) :

3. Governing equations K 0 (a) − KIc d λ

K duc =
1−d λ (9)
Rice [1] derived the following relation between the shape of a crack The crack shape corresponding to the piecewise constant stress in-
front, a(z), and the resulting stress intensity factor, K(z), tensity factor is obtained from Eq. (2) together with the Fourier coef-
∞ ' ficients an from Eq. (6) using Eq. (8). The summation is carried out
K 0 (a (z ))
K (z ) = K 0 (a (z )) +
2π
∫ a (z(z)'−−z )a2(z ) dz' numerically. Fig. 3 shows results for two different volume fractions of
−∞ (1) the brittle phase (32% and 8%). The coordinate axes represent the
piecewise constant stress intensity factor (right axis) and the normal-
The integral is understood as its principal value, z is the coordinate
ized crack length A (left axis) with
along the straight reference crack front, z′ is the corresponding in-
tegration variable, and K 0 (a (z )) is the stress intensity factor for the A = (a − a0) [λ (1 − KIc K 0)] (10)
straight reference crack having length a. Compared to Rice’s result, a It should be noted that the plot for the crack front shape is in-
possible explicit dependence of K 0 on z′ is ignored here. The formula is dependent of KIc K 0, if the normalization in Eq. (10) is used. Hence an
accurate to first order in a(z)-a(z′), i.e. for only moderately curved arbitrary value can be chosen for KIc K 0 to plot the crack front shape in
crack fronts. Fig. 3. Since the denominator in Eq. (10) changes its sign when
For a periodic structure with wavelength λ in z direction one ex- KIc K 0 = 1, the result correctly describes that the crack lags behind in
pands a(z) in a Fourier series the ductile phase when KIc K 0 < 1, while it lags behind in the brittle
∞ phase when KIc K 0 > 1 (‘crack pinning’).
a (z ) = a 0 + ∑ an cos(2πnz λ) Fig. 4 shows the effect of the term dK 0 (a 0) da0 in Eq. (6), which was
n=1 (2) set equal to zero in Fig. 3. The term enhances the curvature of the crack
The principal-value integral in Eq. (1) with Eq. (2) inserted can be front up to the point where the first Fourier coefficient of the crack
evaluated using tabulated solutions with the result length, a1, becomes infinite when (dK da) (πK λ ) = 1. As Rice [1]
points out, this means that the crack front becomes unstable.
∞ 2
∫ cos(2πnz' λ(z)'−−z )cos(2
2
πnz λ ) '
dz = −
2π
λ
ncos ⎛
2πnz
⎝ λ ⎠
⎞
5. Crack growth rate in the stripe model
−∞ (3)

The reference stress intensity factor K0(a) can be expanded to linear Since the local stress intensity factor varies in proportion to the
accuracy in a-a0 applied stress intensity factor for the reference crack, the amplitude of
the stress intensity factor in the ductile phase is
dK 0 (a0 )
K 0 (a) = K 0 (a0) + (a (z ) − a0) 0
1 − (KIc Kmax )(d λ )
da0 (4) ΔK duc = ΔK 0
1−d λ (11)
Combining the preceding equations leads to the solution for the 0 0
and the local R ratio is equal to the applied R = Kmin Kmax . If a Paris-
stress intensity factor type crack growth law obtains, the steady-state crack growth rate is
∞
2πnz da dN = A (ΔK duc )m (12)
K (z ) = K 0 (a0 ) + K 0 (a0 ) ∑ kn cos ⎛ ⎞
n=1 ⎝ λ ⎠ (5) Here da dN is the crack growth increment per loading cycle, and A and
m are parameters. This result will be further evaluated in the following
with the Fourier coefficients
sections.
π dK 0 (a 0) da 0 ⎞
kn = − ⎛ −
⎜ nan ⎟

nK 0 (a0 ) ⎠ 6. Numerical transient solutions - validation for the stripe model

⎝λ (6)

Eq. (6) represents the relation between the stress intensity factor
and the shape of the crack front in terms of the Fourier coefficients kn
and an. In the following, this relation will be inverted and used to
calculate the crack front shape from a given distribution of the stress
intensity factor.
The closed-form steady-state solution presented above was possible
because the stress intensity factor is piecewise constant during steady-
state crack growth. This simplification is no longer valid for describing
the time dependent evolution of the crack. The time dependent solu-
tions developed now are based on the crack growth laws

2
H. Riedel International Journal of Fatigue 131 (2020) 105332

a) b)

x, a
x, a
crack front

crack front
d
d

0 0 z
z
Fig. 2. Stripe model (a) and particle model (b). The curves represent the growing crack front a(z) in the ductile matrix and the brittle phase (light blue). The particles
may be circular cylindrical or spherical. (For interpretation of the references to colour in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)

da dN = A (ΔK (z ))m in the ductile phase (13) 1.2

normalized crack length, A

d/ = 0.32
(dK/da) / K) = 0.5 1.5
da dN = B (Kmax (z ) − KIc ) in the brittle phase (14) 1.0

Eq. (13) represents the Paris law for fatigue crack growth, now at 0.8
each point of the crack front. Eq. (14) is not a physics based law, but it 0.2 1.0
0.6

K/K0
guarantees that the stress intensity factor remains close to the fracture
toughness KIc ; Kmax is the maximum stress intensity factor within the
0.4 0
load cycle. By choosing the parameter B large enough, the requirement 0.5
that the stress intensity factor should be constant in the brittle phase
0.2
can be fulfilled to a desired accuracy. The stability of the numerical
scheme is improved if negative values of da dN are ignored. Eqs. (13) 0.0 0.0
and (14) are first applied to the stripe model and, after validation of the -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3
approach, to the circular-particle model in Section 7. 2 z/
To reduce the number of parameters the numerical calculations are
Fig. 4. The crack front protrusion is enhanced by positive dK/da.
carried out in dimensionless form: stress intensity factors are normal-
0
ized by Kmax , lengths by the spacing λ, e.g. , a ̂ = a λ ; and the nor-
malized number of cycles is N  = NA (Kmax
0
)m λ . The normalized crack the stress intensity factor is discontinuous at the phase boundaries, and
 = (da dN ) [A (Kmax
growth rate is then da ̂ dN 0
)m ]. such step functions are difficult to approximate by Fourier series.
The Fortran program for the time evolution starts from a given crack Moreover, oscillations in the stress intensity factor are enhanced by the
shape, a(z), for example a(z) = 0, calculates the Fourier coefficients an, nonlinearity of the Paris law, so that also the crack length a(z) develops
uses Eq. (6) to calculate the Fourier coefficients kn, and inverts the oscillations with Fourier coefficients beyond the original limit nmax. For
Fourier transformation to obtain K(z). From Eqs. (13) and (14) one reasons that are not completely understood by the author the following
obtains the increment da (z ) = (da dN ) dN , which is used to update a(z) procedure leads to solutions which perfectly approach the closed-form
providing the starting value for the next time step. This explicit time steady-state solutions: The program works with a fixed number of
integration scheme is stable for sufficiently small increments dN; in Fourier coefficients nmax, thus ignoring the higher terms that develop
terms of the dimensionless number of cycles, increments of typically during crack growth. Fig. 5 illustrates the result after a steady state has
1E−4 lead to stable runs with computing times of a few seconds on an been reached. If the crack length is calculated strictly by integration of
ordinary PC. Values of the dimensionless factor B [A (Kmax 0
)m − 1 ] ≈ 100 Eqs. (13) and (14), the solution exhibits strong oscillations near the
guarantee that the stress intensity factor in the brittle phase is suffi- phase boundary. However, if the Fourier spectrum of the crack length a
ciently close to KIc . (z) is truncated at n = nmax, the red curve in Fig. 5 is obtained, which is
The number of Fourier coefficients taken into account in the nu- smooth and indistinguishable from the closed-form steady-state solu-
merical scheme, nmax, plays a special role. One of the problems is that tion. While Fig. 5 was calculated with nmax = 150, nmax = 10–20 is

0.20
normalized crack length, A

normalized crack length, A

0.5 a) d/ = 0.32 1.2

1.5 b) d/ = 0.08

0.4 0.15 1.0

1.0 0.8
0.3
K/K0
K/K0

0.10
0.6
0.2
0.5 0.4
0.05
0.1
0.2

0.0 0.0 0.00 0.0

-3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3
2 z/ 2 z/
Fig. 3. Crack front shape (red) for a given piecewise constant stress intensity factor (cyan), KIc K0 = 0.2 . (For interpretation of the references to colour in this figure
legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)

3
H. Riedel International Journal of Fatigue 131 (2020) 105332

10
1.5 d/ = 0.3
8

1.0 6 KIc/K0 = 0.6 KIc/K0 = 1.4

a/

a/
0.5 4

2
KIc/K0 = 2
0.0
0
0.0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0 2 4 6 8 10 12
z/ N_hat
Fig. 5. Crack front shape; oscillating solution (black); smooth solution (red) if 0
Fig. 7. Evolution of the average crack length for various KIc Kmax ratios.
Fourier series is truncated at nmax. d/λ = 0.32, nmax = 150. (For interpretation
of the references to colour in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web
version of this article.) 100
d/ = 0.3
10 m=4
usually sufficient for an acceptable accuracy. R=0

m
(da/dN)/(AKIc )
1
no particles
7. Circular particles
0.1
To model crack growth through an array of circular cylindrical 0.01
particles, the same model equations are used as in the stripe model. circular particles
Also the filtering of the spectrum of a(z) is applied. Fig. 6 shows three 1E-3
results, two of them for KIc Kmax 0
> 1 (crack pinning), the other for stripe model
0
KIc Kmax < 1 (crack growth enhancement). In both cases the crack front 1E-4
0.3 0.6 1 3
becomes nearly straight soon after having passed a row of particles. The
pictures also illustrate that the curvature of the crack front increases K0/KIc
0
with KIc Kmax , so that the requirement of small curvatures, on which Eq.
Fig. 8. Normalized da/dN curves. For the particle-free material a Paris law with
(1) is based, is increasingly violated.
m = 4 is assumed. The stripe model predicts a fatigue threshold at
Fig. 7 shows the evolution of the average crack length. For a/λ > 3
ΔK 0 KIc = 0.3.
there are no brittle particles in the geometrical model, so that the crack
advances freely with a normalized rate da ̂ dN  = 1. While the crack
traverses the array of particles, the average growth rate is In Fig. 8 normalized crack growth rates are plotted as a function of
 = 0.275, 0.66 and 1.35 for the cases shown in Figs. 6 and 7, i.e.
da ̂ dN the amplitude of the normalized applied stress intensity factor. For the
0 stripe model the crack growth rates are given by Eqs. (11) and (12); for
for KIc Kmax = 2, 1.4 and 0.6, respectively.

a) 3.0 b) 3.0 c) 3.0

2.5 2.5 2.5

2.0 2.0 2.0

1.5 1.5 1.5

a/
a/

a/

1.0 1.0 1.0

0.5 0.5 0.5

0.0 0.0 0.0

KIc/K0 = 2 Kc/K0 = 1.4 KIc/K0 = 0.6

-0.5 -0.5 -0.5
0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0
z/ z/ z/
Fig. 6. Crack pinning (a and b) and growth enhancement by brittle particles (c). The difference in dimensionless number of cycles between consecutive crack front
 = 0.18 for the cases with pinning and ΔN
positions is ΔN  = 0.06 for growth enhancement. The calculation is done in 0 < z/λ < 0.5; the rest is complemented by
symmetry.

4
H. Riedel
Fig. 9. The crack is arrested at the first two rows of particles if
KIc ΔK 0 > λ d = 1 0.3.
the circular particle model they are taken from the slopes of the curves
0
in Fig. 7. (Note that ΔK 0 = Kmax for R = 0).
As Fig. 8 shows, brittle particles accelerate the crack growth rate
compared to the particle-free material if the stress intensity factor is
greater than the fracture toughness. However, the effect is not large. In
0
the extreme case KIc Kmax = 0 , the maximum enhancement factor for
the stripe model is 1 (1 − d λ )m , i.e. = 4.2 for d λ = 0.3, m = 4 . For the
circular particle model, the maximum enhancement factor is only 1.45.
On the other hand, the pinning effect of the brittle phase may be
large. In the stripe model a fatigue threshold occurs when
ΔK 0 KIc = d λ (=0.3 in Fig. 8). Also, in the circular particle model
crack growth comes to a standstill if ΔK 0 KIc < d λ = 0.3. This is illu-
strated in Fig. 9, where consecutive crack front positions are piled up
against the first two rows of particles.
8. Discussion
Rice’s [1] theory, and thus the present analysis, is based on the
assumption that the crack front is only moderately curved. To estimate
the inaccuracy of this linearized theory, second-order theories [3–5],
finite perturbation theories [7,8] or numerical boundary element cal-
culations [9] can be used. Fig. 10 shows a comparison of the present
first-order solutions (black lines) with second-order solutions of Le-
blond et al. [3] (red lines). In this analysis the crack front is prescribed
as a single cosine wave with amplitude a1, and the resulting stress in-
tensity factor is calculated for various values of the crack front pro-
trusion, 2a1/λ. One notes that the total amplitude of the stress intensity
factor between its extremes is the same for the first- and the second-
order theory, and that the differences between first- and second-order
results remain moderate up to a protrusion 2a1/λ = 0.6. For larger
protrusions, 2a1/λ > 2/π ≈ 0.637, the first- and second-order for-
mulae predict that the stress intensity factor would become negative at
z = 0. As Gao and Rice [2] remark, Fares’ numerical solutions [9] do
not become negative, which means that both, the linear and the
quadratic solutions become qualitatively wrong when 2a1/λ > 2/π.
Fig. 10. First- and second-order solutions for the stress intensity factor at a
crack front with a prescribed cosine shape with amplitude a1 and wavelength λ
(after Leblond et al. [3]).
5
International Journal of Fatigue 131 (2020) 105332
Vasoya et al. [4] give second-order solutions for a stripe model with
piecewise constant stress intensity factor, which is directly comparable
with the one presented here. The greatest nonlinearity which they
consider corresponds to KIc K 0 = 1.41. In this case the crack front
shapes calculated from the linear and the second-order theories differ
by 9%.
The condition that the protrusion of the crack front should be lim-
ited to 2a1/λ = 0.6 implies that acceptable accuracy of the linear
0
theory can be expected if KIc Kmax ≤ 1.6. The solution in Fig. 6a for
0
KIc Kmax = 2 is just outside this range, while the solution in Fig. 9 with
0
KIc Kmax = 3.7 obviously violates the requirement that the crack front
should be only slightly curved. In that case, neither the linear nor the
quadratic theory would be appropriate. Rather, the vertical parts of the
crack front would move in horizontal direction thus circumventing the
particle. This process was modelled for one particular case by Fares [9]
numerically using the boundary element method. The finite perturba-
tion method of Bower and Ortiz [7,8], like the boundary element
method, provides accurate results for arbitrarily large nonlinearity in-
cluding the case that the crack circumvents a particle. After the parti-
cles have been circumvented, they serve as crack bridges behind the
crack front, until they finally break as the crack advances. This bridging
effect will reduce the crack growth rate compared to the material
without particles, but probably to a smaller extent than predicted by the
present model, which predicts crack arrest for sufficiently small load
amplitudes.
The present model does not allow the crack to leave the x-z-plane.
For circular cylindrical particles, there would be no reason for the crack
to leave the x-z-plane. However, if spherical particles act as strong
obstacles, the crack would tend to circumvent them in the third di-
mension. Attempts to model both, crack deflection and crack pinning
were made by Kim and Kishi [13] using results of Cotterell and Rice
[14] on stress intensity factors at deflected cracks.
To validate the predictions of the present model, fatigue crack
growth rates in materials with different volume fractions of brittle
particles should be compared experimentally. To the author’s knowl-
edge this has rarely been done systematically to an extent that the
present theory could be critically checked. In a few publications fatigue
crack growth rates in Al alloys with different Si contents have been
compared [15,16]. Generally the growth rates in Stage 2 of the da/dN
curve are larger in the high-Si alloys containing coarse brittle Si par-
ticles, the difference between the alloys being moderate, in agreement
with the prediction in Fig. 8. Further, Moffat [16] observes the pre-
dicted cross-over of the da/dN curves of materials with and without
particles. This confirms a characteristic feature of the model, but in
other cases such a cross-over is not observed [15], possibly since other
factors have a stronger influence on the fatigue threshold thus masking
the crack pinning effect.
9. Conclusions
Brittle particles may accelerate or impede the growth of a fatigue
crack in the ductile matrix. If the fracture toughness of the particles, KIc ,
is smaller than the maximum stress intensity factor in the loading cycle
0
Kmax , the presence of the particles accelerates crack growth, but
quantitatively the effect remains small, in agreement with experimental
results in the literature. For tough particles, or in other words, for small
0
applied stress intensity factors, Kmax < KIc , the pinning effect of the
particles may become large. The linear perturbation theory predicts a
fatigue threshold at ΔK 0 KIc = d λ (=0.3 for the geometry studied in
the present paper). Qualitative arguments based on singular numerical
results of nonlinear theories suggest that, instead of a true threshold a
substantial drop of the crack growth rate will occur. In real materials,
such as Al alloys with brittle Si particles, this drop of the crack growth
rate by particle pinning is observed in some cases [16], but may be
overlain by other, more common causes for a fatigue threshold in other
cases.
H. Riedel
Declaration of Competing Interest
None.
Acknowledgement
The author would like to thank his colleague Carl Fischer for sharing
unpublished experimental results. This research did not receive any
specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-
for-profit sectors.
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