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ME559 Introduction to Fracture Mechanics

1. 1 History and Overview

Structural Reliability, What Do We Mean?

We dont want things we build to break, It costs us around 4% of GDP and it kills p p people! How can we reduce this?
By understanding the causes of structural failure.

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Fracture Costs
Fracture Mechanics ensures the safety of engineering structures which may contain cracks or defects. Apart from ensuring the safety of human lives, this results in major financial savings. g In 1982 the United States estimated that the cost of fracture was of the order of 120 billion dollars per year , (4% of the gross national product).

Fracture Costs

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Technology Transfer
The annual costs could be reduced by 30 billion dollars by implementing the best available practice, including fracture control, defect assessment inspection maintenance and assessment, inspection, repair strategies. Education and training of informed personnel are key aspects of the transfer of technology into industrial practice.
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Potential savings from FractureMechanics Research

Research directed towards fracture related problems could further reduce the costs of fracture by 30 billion dollars per annum. research can be thought of under two sub-headings Materials and Structures. Materials research includes: Better understanding of material behavior Improved control of material properties Improved reliability through processing control and defect control Improved mechanical properties arising from control of microstructure
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Potential savings from FractureMechanics Research

Structural research includes: Better control of fabrication processes such as welding Improved lifetime and performance predictions Improved design through better stress analysis

WHY STRUCTURES FAIL?

I. Negligence during design, construction or operation of the structure II. Application of a new design or material, which produces an unexpected (and undesirable) result. ENGINEERS SHOULD KNOW a. How to select which best fit the demands of his/her design. demands are: economic, aesthetic , strength and durability b. Should remember the broad range of orders of magnitudes of material properties.

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Types of Structural Failure

Failure of structures
Yielding-Dominant General Plasticity Significant defects are those controlling resistance to plastic flow -Example Interstitials Grain boundaries Precipitates Dislocation Networks
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Failure modes for materials

Load
Steady, Repeated, Impact Deformation Elastic Permanent Unlimited sepa Rupture Overall local ration
By B crack k propagation Continuous, intermittent

Fracture Dominant Highly localized plasticity Significant defects are essentially macroscopic -Example Weld flaws Porosity Forging laps Fatigue and stress
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Environment corrosive?

Time scale Short, long

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Temperature
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Infant Mortality Causes

Poor Design, Not applying Known Principles. Manufacturing Errors Unexpected Usage, (Pilot does outside loop in 747) Most (not all) infant mortality structural Failures are preventable by applying well known design principles.
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Infant Mortality Failure Modes

Buckling/instability. Overload. Geometric design errors errors. Inadequate process control.

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Ductile
Metal moves Plastic deformation before fracture Rough surface More energy absorbed before fracture

Brittle
Material cleaves Little/no plastic deformation before fracture Little energy absorbed before fracture

End of Life or Time Dependent Failure Modes

More Challenging to predict. More difficult to test for. Dependent on integrated service usage that is difficult to predict in design phase. Not technologically mature and therefore not a well understood by design engineers.

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HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
Pre-industrial revolution Materials : timber, brick and mortar Arch shape dominated the engineering design. Compressively loaded structures are obviously stable. Example: Roman bridges, pyramids in Egypt Industrial Revolution Materials: iron and steel Build structures that carried tensile stresses Rupture of a molasses tank in Boston Jan 1919 2millions gallons of molasses were spilled 12 deaths, 40 injuries, massive property damage,several horses drowned. Similar failures in bridges and other structures
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HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
Early Fracture Research

Leonardo da Vinci: measured the strength of iron wires and found that the strength varied inversely with wire length. C.E.Inglish(1913): Stresses in a plate due to the presence of cracks and sharp corners. corners Griffith (1920): Invoked the first law of thermodynamics to formulate a fracture theory based on a simple energy balance. Relation was established between the fracture stress and flaw size. Westergaard (1939): Analysis of bearing pressures and cracks
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HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
Liberty ships(1943): 2700 liberty ships built during WW II 400 sustained fractures, of which 90 were serious. 20 total failure and half of them broke in two. two Investigations revealed that: the welds, which were produced by a semiskilled work force, contained crack-like flaw. Most of the fractures initiated on the deck at square hatch corners, where there was a local stress concentration.
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HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
The steel from which the Liberty ships were made had poor toughness, as measured by Charpy impact tests. The failures often occurred under conditions of low stresses which made them seemingly inexplicable. The investigations revealed that flaws and Stress Concentration factors were responsible.
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HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
Post-War Fracture Mechanics Research
G.R. Irwin ( 1948 ) and E.Orowan(1948) extended Griffith theory to metals N.F. Motto (1948) extended Griffith theory to rapid crack propagation A.A. Wells A A W ll (1955) f l fugelage failures in Comet jet aircraftsf il i C j i f fracture and fatigue G.R. Irwin ( 1956 ) developed the energy release rate concept (1957) crack tip stress and displacement fields solution M.L. Williams (1957) Crack tip stress distributions

HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
Post-War Fracture Mechanics Research P.C. Paris (1961) -Application of fracture mechanics to fatigue G.R. Irwin (1961)-crack tip plastic zones, correction to yielding D.s. Dugdale (1961)-G.I. Barenblatt (1961)-small scale yield J.R. Rice(1968)-J-integral J R Ri (1968) J i t l J.W. Hutchinson, J.R. Rice and G.F. Rosengren (1968)- related J-integral to crack tip stress fields in nonlinear materials. J.A. Bagley and J.D. Landes(1972)-experiments to measure J C.F. Shih and J.W. Hutchinson (1976)-Fully plastic solutions.

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Brittle Failures
Examples Ships Great Molasses Flood 1918 WWII Liberty Ships Silver bridge-1960s Electric Towers-1990s Challenger Space Shuttle-1986 Commonalities Cold Weather Loud Noise Sudden Failure

Crack

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HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
Occurrence of low stress fracture in high strength materials induced the development of fracture mechanics The object of fracture mechanics is to provide quantitative answers to specific problems concerning cracks in structures

CRACK IN A STRUCTURE or EFFECT OF A CRACK

A crack will grow: 1. repeated load 2. combined load 3. load + hostile environment Irrespective of the crack growth mechanism, the residual i f i i strength will decrease with the increase of crack (flaw) length. The onset of steady crack growth will progressively reduce a component's ability to withstand a sudden overload to the point where the structure is ultimately may fail under loads typical of those expected during regular usage.

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Why fracture Mechanics?

Quantitative answers to the following questions: 1. what is the residual strength as a function of crack size? 2. what crack size can be tolerated under service loading? or what is the maximum permissible crack size? 3. how long does it take for a crack to g g grow from certain initial size (minimum detectable) to the maximum permissible crack size? 4 what is the service life of a structure when certain pre-existing flaw size (ex: manufacturing defect) is assumed to exist? 5. during the period available for crack detection how often should the structure be inspected for cracks?

Why Fracture Mechanics?

Helpful in studying fatigue and stress corrosion cracking (SCC)or Environment Assisted Cracking (EAC) Creep cracks and Wear induced cracks can be addressed by fracture mechanics Corrosion often provides crack nucleation mechanism in service conditions, then crack propagates by fatigue
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UNDERSTANDING THE PROBLEM OF FRACTURE1

UNDERSTANDING THE PROBLEM OF FRACTURE1

1. The microscopic study of macro- and micro flaws in metals and alloys - by metallurgists or material scientists, 2. The mathematical analysis of the stress distribution surrounding cracks - usually performed by engineers and mathematicians, 3. The 3 Th careful analysis of structural failures, particularly the f l l i f l f il i l l h appearance of the cracked surface, in order to explain the reasons for failure- usually undertaken by metallurgists and/or metallographers . The efficient detection of cracks therefore becomes an important NDT requirement. However, the method is limited by the size of the smallest crack which can be detected.

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DESIGN PHILOSOPHY
Given this limitation, the engineer may have to assume that cracks will always exist and, as suggested by Fuchs and Stephens2, may choose to design a structure such that one of the following conditions applies: (i) The cracks never propagate -infinite life design , (ii) The cracks may grow, but so slowly that the finite life of the structure exceeds the desired life by a large margin -safe life design ,

DESIGN PHILOSOPHY
(iii) The cracks may grow and if they do and an individual component fails it will not lead to a total collapse of the structure -fail safe design, (iv) The cracks will grow but regular inspection of critical components ensures removal well before the crack reaches a "critical" length -damage tolerant design

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DESIGN PHILOSOPHY
A good understanding of fracture mechanics is required for all of these design methodologies.

DESIGN PHILOSOPHY
Infinite-life design: Unlimited safety is the oldest criterion the cracks never propagate, because g , g g , Design stress, Sd << fatigue strength, Se Examples: Engine valve springs Rail road axles

1. R.M. Caddell " Deformation and Fracture of Solids", Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, New Jercy, (1980) 2. H.O. Fuchs, and R.I. Stephens, " Metal Fatigue in Engineering", Wiley, New York, (1980)

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DESIGN PHILOSOPHY
Safe-life design: Finite life design the cracks may grow, but so slowly that the finite life of the structure exceeds the desired life by a large margin. This implies the Max. S, never occur during the life of a component or a structure Examples: Suspension spring, reverse gear, ball bearings, roller bearings, ---Auto Industry Jet engine design, landing gear----Aerospace Industry Pressure vessel design----------pressure vessel Industry
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DESIGN PHILOSOPHY
Fail-safe design: Developed by Aircraft Engineers Weight of the aircraft and safety of the people + aircraft are the constraints Too high FS --Wt., too low FS--danger to the people Philosophy is that cracks may grow and if they do and an individual component fails it will not lead to a total collapse of the structure Multiple load paths, crack stoppers Examples: Air frame ( wings, fuselages, control surfaces) Engines are fail safe only in multiengine planes
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DESIGN PHILOSOPHY
Damage tolerant design: Refined fail-safe design philosophy Cracks will exist (processing or fatigue) and the cracks will grow but regular inspection of critical components ensures removal well before the crack reaches a "critical" length Uses Fracture Mechanics Approach to design pp g Looks for Materials with slow crack growth and high fracture toughness Examples: US Air force contracts ---damage tolerant design Pressure vessel Industry---Leak before break or burst
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Fracture Mechanics and Strength of Materials Design

IN FRACTURE MECHANICS THE SIZE OF A CRACK IS THE DOMINANT PARAMETER. IT IS THE SPECIFICATION OF THIS PARAMETER THAT DISTINGUISHESFRACTURE MECHANICS FROM CONVENTIONAL FAILURE ANALYSIS

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Fracture Mechanics and Strength of Materials Design

STRENGTH OF MATERIALS
W H

Fracture Mechanics and Strength of Materials Design

a
FRACTURE MECHANICS
W H

L L

In presence of a crack of dimension a - mm, stress i intensity f i factor, K i the structural parameter is h l K = 1.12 max a , Failure or crack grow uncontrollably if K K IC W <
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max

6WL , Failure occurs if max yield , BH 2 W must be small for fixed beam dimensions where max

BH 2 yield W < 6 SL
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yield
S

BH 2 K IC 6 SL 1.12 a

where K

K IC S
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Cartoons illustrating the concepts of fracture mechanics

Cartoons illustrating the concepts of fracture mechanics

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Fracture Mechanics
1

Fracture Mechanics Failure boundary

Linear Elastic Fracture Mechanics behavior Elastic-Plastic Fracture Mechanics Regime

KI K IC

1/S

Engineering Design Regime

0 1/S

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max yield

Strength of Material Behavior

1

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Scale effects:idealized illustration of the important length scales involved for cleavage crack growth in a relatively ductile polycrystalline metal. The relevant length scales range from that of the macroscale object to the atomic scale, including the various microstructural length scales in between that are associated with, for example, particles, grains, and defect structures

Cartoons illustrating the concepts of fracture mechanics

(a) The component scale; (b) the plastic zone governed by macroscopic continuum plastic flow; (c) the grain scale in a polycrystalline metal; (d ) the scale of discrete slip planes and of individual dislocations; and
The various relevant scales that may determine the response of a crack in a macroscopic component.
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(e) the atomicscale.

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Importance of fracture Mechanics

All real materials contain defects: understand the influence of these defects on the strength of the material. Defect-tolerant design philosophy Relevance for Fatigue: understand the initiation and growth of fatigue cracks. We will use two approaches, an energybased approach and a more rigorous mechanics approach.
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A Crack in a structure
Failure may occur

Crack size

Design strength

Residual strength

Expected highest Service load

Normal service load

Failure

Cycles or Time

Cycles or Time

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Quantitative answers to the following questions

1. what is the residual strength as a function of crack size? 2. what crack size can be tolerated under service loading? Or what is the maximum permissible crack size? 3. how long does it take for a crack to grow from certain initial size (minimum detectable) to the maximum permissible crack size? 4 what is the service life of a structure when certain preexisting flaw size (ex: manufacturing defect) is assumed to exist? 5. during the period available for crack detection how often should the structure be inspected for cracks?

Summary
We have Discussed in this module briefly:
History of fracture Mechanics Failure Modes Fracture Mechanics and Design

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