THEORIES OF FAILURE

Failure of Materials
• When subjected to excessive load, materials fail..

• Imperative to be able to predict what is the maximum load a material can sustain

• Before that, we need to understand “How materials fail?”

 What is “failure”?

“Failure” is a very loose term in the context of solid mechanics- we can say that
a material fails
• if it can no longer perform its designated role

• if it suffers irreversible change in property

Failure can happen due to several reasons:-

• Materials exceeds it’s elastic deformation limit

• Yielding/plastic deformation takes place
• Materials suddenly fails/fracture without going to any plastic deformation

In this course, we do not go into this debate/discussion of when material fails. We

assume that, a certain value derived by uniaxial test is provided to us.
 Ductile failure
Yield Strength

Elastic limit • Ductile materials are weak

in shear

• Slipping takes place, half of

the crystal slides over the
other half, along the plane
which is at 45° with the axis
of material

Proportional Limit

Perfectly plastic & strain

hardening initiates
 Brittle materials

Yield Strength

Elastic • Brittle materials are weak in tension

regime
• Material fails without appreciable prior
plastic deformation

• Failure takes place along the surface

that is at 90° to the loading direction
 Brittle and Ductile
• Brittle materials and ductile materials fails differently,
sometimes also dependent upon the loading condition. For
example, a brittle material under compression loading has Ductile
failure plane at 45° to the direction of loading σ or U

• Brittle to ductile transition or vice-versa, is basically the change

in the ability of a material to absorb fracture energy/fracture Transition
toughness prior to failure. Brittle materials typically have low
fracture energy whereas ductile material has high fracture
energy
Brittle

• This distinction is artificial, most materials show a combination Temp

of behavior

• Same material exhibits brittleness or ductility dependent on

several conditions, for example varying temperature or strain
rate
 Problem statement

Will the material be able to bear a certain

multi-axial state of stress?

The failure load for a material when

subjected to uniaxial stress is known
 Theories of failure - Assumptions

All theories are based on two common

assumptions/simplifications + specific assumption for
specific theories

• Materials are isotropic

• Strength/yield value is same for tension and

compression
Maximum Principal Stress /Rankine’s Theory
 Theories of failure for Ductile Materials
• Based on observation, ductile materials fails by slip along critically orientated planes
which is at 45° to specimen orientation
• Shear stress on slip plane along slip direction is referred as critically resolved shear
stress
• Ductile materials fails, if the shear stress exceeds yield shear stress
 Maximum shear stress/Tresca's theory

According to this theory, failure will not happen when the maximum shear
stress developed due to external load is not more than shear strength of
material

Failure will happen if :

 Maximum Elastic Strain/St. Venant’s Theory

This theory can be applied for both ductile and brittle materials, but is not accurate for either case
 Maximum strain energy/Haigh & beltrami theory
According to this theory, failure at any point in a body subject to a state of stress begins only
when the energy per unit volume absorbed at the point is equal to the energy absorbed per
unit volume by the material when subjected to the elastic limit under a uniaxial state of stress.
• For a general 3D loading, the strain energy per unit volume is as below:

• According to strain energy failure criteria, material will fail if

 Maximum Distortion Energy/Von Mises Theory
• According to this theory, it is not the total energy which is the criterion for failure; It is
the fact that the energy absorbed during the distortion of an element is responsible for
failure.

• Rationale: When load is applied, there is change in shape and size. Change in shape
leads to failure

• Materials can withstand large amounts of strain energy when under hydrostatic
compression load

• Broadly, it can be stated that failure happens when distortion strain energy per unit
volume exceeds distortion energy per unit volume of a standard specimen during
uniaxial tensile test prior to plastic deformation
 Dilatational stress and distortion stress

General state of Stress leading to Stress leading to

stress change in size change in shape

Any general component of stress can be broken into two components/divisions:

• First component/division will only cause change in size (dilatational)
• Second component/ division will cause change in shape (Change in shape is distortion)
 Dilatational stress/Hydrostatic stress

• The Mohr’s circle for such loading is a point

• In all coordinate axis system the stress value remains the

same. Sometimes, known as spherical stress; leading to
change in size only
Distortion Stress Energy
Dilational energy for uniaxial loading

A
 Distortion energy for uniaxial loading

Combining A and B, material will fail if

 Failure envelope

Von Mises
theory

Maximum
principal stress
theory

Tresca
(maximum shear
stress) theory
▪ This envelope states that tresca
theory
is safest for ductile material
 Fatigue
• Failure of a material or structural part as the result of varying / cyclic
stresses which are normally lower than the yield stress (for metals!)
• Resistance of material to fluctuating stresses progressively decreases
as the number of stress/fatigue cycle increases, and the materials
suddenly fail.
• It is basically a time dependent failure, under fluctuating stress
• S-N curve is basically a graphical representation of maximum stress
versus the number of stress cycle on a logarithmic scale before fatigue
Fluctuating stress
 Fatigue life models

▪ Stress life method: Relates stress amplitude to fatigue life, applicable when there is
high cycle fatigue. Direction of amplitude stress must be known. S-N curve is used
for this method

▪ Strain life method: Relates strain amplitude to fatigue life, used when low cycle is
applied. Here also, amplitude stress direction must be known. Mansion-coffin
equation is used

▪ Linear-elastic fracture mechanics method: Some times stress and strain are not
necessarily enough to determine the fatigue of material. This method relates energy
dissipated to the load cycles
 Stress life method
Least accurate but most commonly used method
 Strain life method
• A fatigue failure almost always begins at a local discontinuity, with a fatigue crack

• The fluctuating stress spreads the fatigue crack, and the cross sectional area of
the component reduces progressively up to a point where material cannot sustain
further load

• When the stress at the discontinuity exceeds the elastic limit, plastic strain occurs

• If a fatigue fracture is to occur, there must exist cyclic plastic strains

 Manson Coffin equation
▪ Fatigue ductility coefficient ε′ is the true strain
corresponding to fracture in one reversal (point A)

▪ Fatigue strength coefficient σ ′ is the true stress

corresponding to fracture in one reversal (point A)
 Manson Coffin equation
▪ Fatigue ductility exponent “c”, is the slope of
the plastic-strain line

▪ Fatigue strength exponent “b” is the slope of

the elastic-strain line
Strain amplitude

c
1.
0
Total strain
Plastic strain
b 1.
Elastic strain
0

100 Reversals to failure, 2N 106

 Goodman Diagram
• It is a straight line joining σw on the ordinate to σb on the abscissa

• Basically, it’s an equation used to quantify the interaction of mean and alternating
stresses on the fatigue life of a material

• Here, fatigue failure of a specimen is corelated with the failure by yielding

stress amplitude

mean stress

fatigue limit

ultimate tensile strength

factor of safety
 Cumulative fatigue failure- Miner’s rule
• If a material undergoes complete reversible load, with different stress amplitudes for
different number of cycles; like σ1 for n1 cycles, σ2 for n2 cycles and so σi for ni cycles, it’s
fatigue life is determined by miner’s rule

• Let N1 be total number of stress cycle if only σ1 acts, N2 if only σ2 acts and so on Ni if only σi
acts, then miner’s rule states that failure occurs when:
 The stress field near the crack tip

• Irwin (1950’s) showed that the stresses near an

infinitely sharp crack are in the form:

• The exact stress condition depends upon the

loading mode:
• K, the stress intensity factor, is a proportionality
factor, scaling the intensity of the stress field
around the crack tip:

r
 The Energy Approach: Griffith criterion
• Griffith (1920):
An existing crack will propagate (under an applied stress σ )
if thereby the total energy of the system is lowered

• Applied to a crack 2a in a plate subjected to a far field stress σ

U0: elastic energy of the loaded plate

Ua: change in the elastic energy by introduction
of a crack
Ug: change in elastic surface energy by the
formation of the crack surfaces
F : work performed by external forces
Griffith criterion: crack 2a under stress σ

Equilibrium is reached if:

G = strain energy release rate
• A crack will grow if the critical value is exceeded:

Gc = critical strain energy release rate = fracture toughness !!!

• Nice, but not correct ---> plasticity (Orowan)

• The right hand term is called the crack resistance R ~ Gc

 Crack growth if crack resistance R > strain
energy release rate G

R = the energy required to grow a crack (~= Gc)

G = the strain energy dU released by the material if crack grows da.

Equilibrium condition:

If G < R, the crack will not grow

but…
If G ≥ R, the crack will grow

For a very brittle material, R is constant, and independent of the crack length.
 Relation strain energy release rate G – stress
intensity factor K
• G is defined as
plane stress

plane strain

• With this becomes:

plane stress

plane strain

• ... for isotropic materials

• Applies (of course) also for Gc and Kc

Thank you !