Lab 6B -Fracture Toughness and

Fracture Toughness-limited
Design

Big bang for the buck!

 What is Fracture Toughness??
• Toughness is the resistance of a material to the
propagation of crack.
• Assumes that a sample of material contains a
small sharp crack (i.e. so small it doesn’t really
reduce the cross sectional area, s = P/A).
• FRACTURE TOUGHNESS, K1c, is the key
material property!!
• Fracture toughness, K1c, is measured in the lab
using compact fracture specimens – see
samples.
 Fracture Toughness versus
Strength:
• Strength is resistance to plastic flow and thus is related
to the stress required to move dislocations through the
solid. The initial strength is called the yield strength.
Strength generally increases with plastic strain because
of work hardening, reaching a maximum at the tensile
strength. The tensile strength is related to the strength
of atomic bonds.
• Toughness is the resistance of a material to the
propagation of a crack. A material with low fracture
toughness, if it contains a crack, may fail before it yields.
A tough material will yield, work harden even when
cracked – the crack makes no significant difference.
What happens to a material with a small crack?

Yields then work Get high stress around

hardens, absorb crack, crack propogates
What happens and get sudden failure.
energy and
when you nick a Stress around crack is
redistribute stress.
brittle material?? In other words, high due to Kt , but
crack makes no nominal stress is much
significant lower than material yield
difference! strength!
 Ductile Fracture:

Stages of ductile fracture:

b. Plastic def’m when stress exceeds
yield.
c. Weaken and fail locally due to
A plastic zone forms at the crack tip where the
inclusions which act as stress
stress would otherwise exceed the yield concentrations – this creates tiny voids.
strength σy.
Voids continue to grow and coalesce to
form larger voids.
d. Remaining area gets smaller increasing
stress until tensile strength is exceeded
then fracture.
 Motivation for Fracture Mechanics
• Very hard (if not impossible) to build a structure that is
defect free (completely without cracks).
– Cracks already in material (inclusions or voids).
– Cracks caused by shrinkage in castings and welding.
– Cracks caused by machining.
– Cracks caused by cyclic loading (fatigue).
– Cracks caused by corrosion.
• Are we all doomed to mega disasters???
• KEY – DAMAGE TOLERANT DESIGN – THE
MATERIAL MUST HAVE SUFFICIENT FRACTURE
TOUGHNESS SO A NOTICEABLE CRACK CAN BE
DETECTED BEFORE FAILURE. THIS IS THE BASES
OF DAMAGE TOLERANT DESIGN – EXTREMELY
IMPORTANT FOR AERSOPACE INDUSTRY.
 Brittle Behavior Causes:
• Boilers to burst
• Bridges to collapse
• Aircraft to crash
• Pipes to split
• CATASTROPHIC FAILURES
 Tests for Toughness:

(a) The tear test. (b) The impact test. Both are used as acceptance tests and for
quality control, but neither measures a true material property (one that is
independent of size and shape).

To get at the real, underlying material properties we need the ideas of

stress intensity and fracture toughness!!
 The Mechanics of Fracture

 c 
s local  s 1  Y 

 2r 
Far from the crack where r >>
c, the local stress falls to the
value of s.
Near the crack r << c, the
local stress rises sharply as:

s c
s local  Y
Lines of force in a cracked body under load; the local stress is proportional to
the number of lines per unit length, increasing steeply as the crack tip is
approached.
2r
 The Mechanics of Fracture
s c
s local  Y
2r

So, for a given value of r, the local stress scales as s c

Which there fore is a measure of the intensity of the local stress.

This quantity is called the mode 1 stress intensity factor (the ‘mode 1’
means tensile fracture and is given the symbol K1.

K1  Ys c
 The Mechanics of Fracture

K1  Ys c = mode 1 stress
intensity factor

Constant
Average stress (i.e.
depending on Crack size
away from crack)
geometry/loading

Failure when K1 = K1c where K1c

is a material property called
fracture toughness.
 The Mechanics of Fracture

K1  Ys c = mode 1 stress
intensity factor

Constant
Average stress (i.e.
depending on Crack size
away from crack)
geometry/loading

Failure when K1 = K1c where K1c

is a material property called
fracture toughness.
 Mode 1 Stress intensities K1 associated with short cracks.
In all cases, c << w.

K1  s c

K1  1.1s c

K1  p c

FL
K1  3 2 c
bw

K1  0.7s c
Internal penny shaped crack
Again, Failure when:

K1  Ys c  K1c

K1c Failure stress at which fracture will occur.

sf  For small cracks, failure will be yield not
c fracture – check both!!!!

K12c
ccrit  Transition fro failure due to fracture vs
s y2 failure due to yield will occur at ccrit.
Cracks < ccrit will yield
Cracks > ccrit will fracture

Think!
 K12c
ccrit 
s y2

Failure by yield Failure by

fracture
Summary:
 How to measure fracture toughness, K1c

Measuring fracture toughness, K1c. Two test configurations

are shown here. Again, fracture toughness is a material property not to be confused with impact.
A chart of fracture toughness Klc and modulus E.
The contours show the toughness, Gc.
A chart of fracture toughness K1c and yield strength σy.
The contours show the transition crack size, ccrit.
 Damage-tolerant Design

FUNCTION AND CONSTRAINTS MAXIMISE [1]

TIES (tensile member)
Maximize flaw tolerance and strength, load-controlled design KIC and σf
Maximize flaw tolerance and strength, displacement-control KIC / E and σf
Maximize flaw tolerance and strength, energy-control KIC2 / E and σf
SHAFTS (loaded in torsion)
Maximize flaw tolerance and strength, load-controlled design KIC and σf
Maximize flaw tolerance and strength, displacement-control KIC / E and σf
Maximize flaw tolerance and strength, energy-control KIC2 / E and σf
BEAMS (loaded in bending)
Maximize flaw tolerance and strength, load-controlled design KIC and σf
Maximize flaw tolerance and strength, displacement-control KIC / E and σf
Maximize flaw tolerance and strength, energy-control KIC2 / E and σf
PRESSURE VESSEL
Yield-before-break KIC / σf
Leak-before-break KIC2 / σf

1.KIC = fracture toughness; E = Young's modulus; σf = failure strength (the yield strength for metals and ductile polymers, the tensile strength for ceramics,
glasses and brittle polymers loaded in tension; the flexural strength or modulus of rupture for materials loaded in bending).