Experimental GH singularity field around growing crack-tip

The displacement fieldsu _x ,u _y at growing crack tip of LY12-M specimens with double edge cracks are measured using moire method. The experimental singularity fields are compared with GH theoretical field [12–14]. The size and shape of the experimental GH singularity fields are obtained. The error in both the experimental and theoretical evaluations is controlled within ±10%. The experiments show that there is singularity dominant around a growing crack tip. The shape of this dominant region ranges from butterfly wing to oblate and circular. Inside GH-field, there is a 3-D deformed damage zone where no GH singularity exists. The project suppoted by National Natural Science Foundation of China     

A field model interpretation of crack initiation and growth behavior in ferroelectric ceramics: change of poling direction and boundary condition

Strain energy density expressions are obtained from a field model that can qualitatively exhibit how the electrical and mechanical disturbances would affect the crack growth behavior in ferroelectric ceramics. Simplification is achieved by considering only three material constants to account for elastic, piezoelectric and dielectric effects. Cross interaction of electric field (or displacement) with mechanical stress (or strain) is identified with the piezoelectric effect; it occurs only when the pole is aligned normal to the crack. Switching of the pole axis by 90° and 180° is examined for possible connection with domain switching. Opposing crack growth behavior can be obtained when the specification of mechanical stress σ^∞ and electric field E^∞ or (σ^∞,E^∞) is replaced by strain ε^∞ and electric displacement D^∞ or (ε^∞,D^∞). Mixed conditions (σ^∞,D^∞) and (ε^∞,E^∞) are also considered. In general, crack growth is found to be larger when compared to that without the application of electric disturbances. This includes both the electric field and displacement. For the eight possible boundary conditions, crack growth retardation is identified only with (E_y^∞,σ_y^∞) for negative E_y^∞ and (D_y^∞,ε_y^∞) for positive D_y^∞ while the mechanical conditions σ_y^∞ or ε_y^∞ are not changed. Suitable combinations of the elastic, piezoelectric and dielectric material constants could also be made to suppress crack growth.     

Crack repair using an elastic filler

The effect of repairing a crack in an elastic body using an elastic filler is examined in terms of the stress intensity levels generated at the crack tip. The effect of the filler is to change the stress field singularity from order 1/r^1/2 to 1/r^(1-λ) where r is the distance from the crack tip, and λ is the solution to a simple transcendental equation. The singularity power (1-λ) varies from (the unfilled crack limit) to 1 (the fully repaired crack), depending primarily on the scaled shear modulus ratio γ_r defined by G₂/G₁=γ_rε, where 2πε is the (small) crack angle, and the indices (1, 2) refer to base and filler material properties, respectively. The fully repaired limit is effectively reached for γ_r≈10, so that fillers with surprisingly small shear modulus ratios can be effectively used to repair cracks. This fits in with observations in the mining industry, where materials with G₂/G₁ of the order of 10^-3 have been found to be effective for stabilizing the walls of tunnels. The results are also relevant for the repair of cracks in thin elastic sheets.     

On the higher order asymptotic analysis of a non-uniformly propagating dynamic crack along an arbitrary path

Transient mixed-mode elastodynamic crack growth along arbitrary smoothly varying paths is considered. Asymptotically, the crack tip stress field is square root singular with the angular variation of the singular term depending weakly on the instantaneous values of the crack tip speed and on the mode-I and mode-II stress intensity factors. However, for a material particle at a small distance away from the moving crack tip, the local stress field will depend not only on the instantaneous values of the crack tip speed and stress intensity factors, but also on the past history of these time dependent quantities. In addition, for cracks propagating along curved paths the stress field is also expected to depend on the nature of the curved crack path. Here, a representation of the crack tip fields in the form of an expansion about the crack tip is obtained in powers of radial distance from the tip. The higher order coefficients of this expansion are found to depend on the time derivative of crack tip speed, the time derivatives of the two stress intensity factors as well as on the instantaneous value of the local curvature of the crack path. It is also demonstrated that even if cracks follow a curved path dictated by the criterion K ₁₁ ^d =0, the stress field may still retain higher order asymmetric components related to non-zero local curvature of the crack path.     

Numerical analysis of quasi-static crack branching in brittle solids by a modified displacement discontinuity method

Mechanism of quasi-static crack branching in brittle solids has been analyzed by a modified displacement discontinuity method. It has been assumed that the pre-existing cracks in brittle solids may propagate at the crack tips due to the initiation and propagation of the kink (or wing) cracks. The originated wing cracks will act as new cracks and can be further propagated from their tips according to the linear elastic fracture mechanics (LEFM) theory. The kink displacement discontinuity formulations (considering the linear and quadratic interpolation functions) are specially developed to calculate the displacement discontinuities for the left and right sides of a kink point so that the first and second mode kink stress intensity factors can be estimated. The crack tips are also treated by boundary displacement collocation technique considering the singularity variation of the displacements and stresses near the crack tip. The propagating direction of the secondary cracks can be predicted by using the maximum tangential stress criterion. An iterative algorithm is used to predict the crack propagating path assuming an incremental increase of the crack length in the predicted direction (straight and curved cracks have been treated). The same approach has been used for estimating the crack propagating direction and path of the original and wing cracks considering the special crack tip elements. Some example problems are numerically solved assuming quasi-static conditions. These results are compared with the corresponding experimental and numerical results given in the literature. This comparison validates the accuracy and applicability of the proposed method.     

Experimental investigation of GH singularity field of the growing crack-tip for different ductile metals

The displacementsu _x ,u _y inx, y directions at growing crack tip of the specimens with double edge cracks for four different alumium alloys and two coppers are measured by using moire method and optical spatial filtering technique. From experimental displacement fields, the displacement singularity fields are obtained and compared with GH theoretical field. Unknown constantsA and _yo in theoretical solution are determined from experimental data. The theoretical singularity field thus compared is given for plane-stress, mode-I, strain-hardening materials. The error in both the experimental and theoretical evaluations is within ± 10%. The experiments show that there exists dominant singularity region around a growing crack-tip. In the experiments, the strain hardening indexn amounts from 3.158 to 14. The shape of this dominant region ranges from butterfly wing to oblate or circular shape. The size and shape of GH dominant region depend on the material property, the specimen geometry and loading type. Inside GH-field, there is a 3-D deformed damage zone, where no GH singularity exists. Very near to the crack-tip, there is a fracture process zone.The project is supported by the National Science Foundation of China.     

Pseudo plane stress mode II crack growth in plastic materials

The near tip field of mode II crack that grows in thin bodies with power hardening or perfectly plastic behavior is analyzed. It is shown that for power hardening behavior, the pseudo plane stress field possesses the logarithm singularity, i.e. σ (ln r)²/(n−1), (ln r)^{2n/(n − 1)}, where r is the distance from the crack tip, n the hardening exponent is σⁿ. When n → ∞ the solution reduced to that for the perfectly plastic case.     

Local weight functions for semi-elliptical surface cracks in finite thickness plates

Weight functions for any local point, 0 < Φ < π/2 along a semi-elliptical surface crack in finite thickness plates were derived from an assumed approximate general weight function and two reference stress intensity factors. The resulting weight functions were verified using available finite element results for two nonlinear stress fields and good agreement was achieved. When used together with weight functions for Φ = 0 and Φ = π/2 the weight functions are suitable for the calculation of stress intensity factors anywhere along the crack front for semi-elliptical surface cracks in complex stress fields with aspect ratios in the range 0 ≤ a/c ≤ 1 and relative depths 0 ≤ a/t ≤ 0.8.     

Thermoelastic investigations for fatigue life assessment

An investigation is presented on the suitability and accuracy of a thermoelastic technique for the analysis of fatigue cracks. The stress intensity factor ranges ΔK _I and ΔK _II are determined from thermoelastic data recorded from around the tip of a sharp slot in a steel specimen under biaxial load, in order to assess the accuracy of the technique. ΔK _I and ΔK _II are determined to within 4% and 9% of a theoretical prediction, respectively. The results from a similar test on a fatigue crack under biaxial load are also presented. These show that thermoelastic stress analysis is a rapid and accurate way of analyzing mixed-mode fatigue cracks. A discussion is given on the potential of thermoelastic stress analysis of propagating cracks.     

Stress intensity factor computation along a non-planar curved crack in three dimensions

In this paper, a numerical procedure, incorporated with the finite element method, is developed for calculation of the mixed-mode stress intensity factors along a 3D curved crack with non-planar surfaces. The approach is formulated by modifying the concept of the J_k- and G_III-integrals. Note that the property of path-independence for curved cracks does not hold in a manner as that for straight cracks and needs to be properly modified. As a consequence, the near-front region is always included in the integration. An appropriate numerical method is therefore developed for simulating the associated singular behavior. Since no extra auxiliary solutions are required for the computation, the proposed method appears to be versatile and can be used for evaluation of the stress intensity factors associated with crack front and crack surfaces of arbitrary curvatures.     

Kinetics of microcrack blunting ahead of macrocrack approaching shear wave speed

The fracturing of glass and tearing of rubber both involve the separation of material but their crack growth behavior can be quite different, particularly with reference to the distance of separation of the adjacent planes of material and the speed at which they separate. Relatively speaking, the former and the latter are recognized, respectively, to be fast and slow under normal conditions. Moreover, the crack tip radius of curvature in glass can be very sharp while that in the rubber can be very blunt. These changes in the geometric features of the crack or defect, however, have not been incorporated into the modeling of running cracks because the mathematical treatment makes use of the Galilean transformation where the crack opening distance or the change in the radius of curvature of the crack does not enter into the solution. Change in crack speed is accounted for only via the modulus of elasticity and mass density. For this simple reason, many of the dynamic features of the running crack have remained unexplained although speculations are not lacking. To begin with, the process of energy dissipation due to separation is affected by the microstructure of the material that distinguishes polycrystalline from amorphous form. Energy extracted from macroscopic reaches of a solid will travel to the atomic or smaller regions at different speeds at a given instance. It is not clear how many of the succeeding size scales should be included within a given time interval for an accurate prediction of the macroscopic dynamic crack characteristics. The minimum requirement would therefore necessitate the simultaneous treatment of two scales at the same time. This means that the analysis should capture the change in the macroscopic and microscopic features of a defect as it propagates. The discussion for a dual scale model has been invoked only very recently for a stationary crack. The objective of this work is to extend this effort to a crack running at constant speed beyond that of Rayleigh wave. Developed is a dual scale moving crack model containing microscopic damage ahead of a macroscopic crack with a gradual transition. This transitory region is referred to as the mesoscopic zone where the tractions prevail on the damaged portion of the material ahead of the original crack known as the restraining stresses, the magnitude of which depends on the geometry, material and loading. This damaged or restraining zone is not assumed arbitrarily nor assumed to be intrinsically a constant in the cohesive stress approach; it is determined for each step of crack advancement. For the range of micronotch bluntness with 0 < β < 30° and 0.2 σ_∞/σ₀ 0.5, there prevails a nearly constant restraining zone size as the crack approaches the shear wave speed. Note that β is the half micronotch angle and the applied stress ratio is σ_∞/σ₀ with σ₀ being the maximum of the restraining stress. For σ_∞/σ₀ equal to or less than 0.5, the macrocrack opening displacement COD is nearly constant and starts to decrease more quickly as the crack approaches the shear wave speed. For the present dual scale model where the normalized crack speed v/c_s increases with decreasing with the one-half microcrack tip angle β. There prevails a limit of crack tip bluntness that corresponds to β 36° and v/c_s 0.15. That is a crack cannot be maintained at a constant speed if the bluntness is increased beyond this limiting value. Such a feature is manifestation of the dependency of the restraining stress on crack velocity and the applied stress or the energy pumped into the system to maintain the crack at a constant velocity. More specifically, the transitory character from macro to micro is being determined as part of the unknown solution. Using the energy density function dW/dV as the indicator, plots are made in terms of the macrodistance ahead of the original crack while the microdefect bluntness can vary depending on the tip geometry. Such a generality has not been considered previously. The macro-dW/dV behavior with distance remains as the inverse r relation yielding a perfect hyperbola for the homogeneous material. This behavior is the same as the stationary crack. The micro-dW/dV relations are expressed in terms of a single undetermined parameter. Its evaluation is beyond the scope of this investigation although the qualitative behavior is expected to be similar to that for the stationary crack. To reiterate, what has been achieved as an objective is a model that accounts for the thickness of a running crack since the surface of separation representing damage at the macroscopic and microscopic scale is different. The transitory behavior from micro to macro is described by the state of affairs in the mesoscopic zone.     

Logarithm strain singularity at tip of mode I growing crack in elasticand perfectly-plastic material

Reanalyzed in detail is the stress and strain distribution near the tip of a Mode I steadily growing crack in an elastic and perfectly-plastic material. The crack tip region is divided into five angular sectors, one of which is singular in character and represents a rapid transition zone that becomes a line of strain discontinuity in the limit as crack tip is approached. It is shown for an incompressible material (ν=0.5) under plane strain that the local strain in all the angular sectors possesses the same logarithm singularity, i.e., In r where r is the radial distance measured from the crack tip. This result also prevails for the compressible material ( v < 0.5) and resolves a long standing controversy concerning the strain singularity in the sector just ahead of the crack tip.     

Stress singularities at crack corners

In this paper the stress and displacement fields near an embedded crack corner in a linear elastic medium are analytically computed. The conical-spherical coordinate system is introduced to solve this problem. It is observed that the strength of the stress singularity depends on the angle of the crack corner. The singularity becomes weaker, varying from r ^-1 to r ⁰, as the angle of the crack corner varies from 360° to 0°. Both symmetric and skew-symmetric loadings give the same variation of the behavior of the stress singularity. It is also found that the order of the singularity is independent of the Poisson's ratio, unlike the corner cracks at a free surface where Poisson's ratio affects the results.     

Rayleigh waves emitted by a propagating crack in a strain-rate dependent elastic medium

A simple model was proposed for the interpretation of the non-circular form of the Rayleigh wavefronts emitted by a fast running crack in a plate. The surface deformation around the crack tip, due to the high stress concentration there, propagated as a surface wave after fracture of this zone. On the other hand, the moving singularity of the crack tip created a dynamic stress field of varying intensity with time all over the specimen. This dynamic stress field resulted in a significant change of the mechanical properties of a strain-rate dependent material and therefore it influenced the velocity of propagation of fracture-Rayleigh wavefronts. An analysis of this varying dynamic strain field explained the non-circular form of Rayleigh waves, accompanying the propagating crack. For the experimental evaluation of the K₁-factor the method of dynamic caustics was used in conjunction with the high-speed photography technique.     

Bifurcation condition of crack pattern in the periodic rectangular array

Bifurcation condition of crack pattern in the periodic rectangular array plays an important role in determining the final failure pattern of rock material. An approximation for the critical crack size/spacing ratio is established for a uniformly growing periodic rectangular array yields to a non-uniform growing pattern of crack growth. Numerical results show that the critical crack size/spacing ratio λ_cr depends on the number of cracks, the crack spacing, the perpendicular distance between two adjacent rows, as well as the loading conditions. In general, λ_cr increases with the number of lines. It is observed that the critical crack size/spacing ratio λ_cr for the periodic rectangular array decreases with an increase in the perpendicular distance between two adjacent rows. It is clear that the critical crack size/spacing ratio λ_cr for the periodic rectangular array under shear stress increases with increasing the crack spacing.     

Crack size and speed interaction characteristics at micro-, meso- and macro-scale

The motivation to examine physical events at even smaller size scale arises from the development of use-specific materials where information transfer from one micro- or macro-element to another could be pre-assigned. There is the growing belief that the cumulated macroscopic experiences could be related to those at the lower size scales. Otherwise, there serves little purpose to examine material behavior at the different scale levels. Size scale, however, is intimately associated with time, not to mention temperature. As the size and time scales are shifted, different physical events may be identified. Dislocations with the movements of atoms, shear and rotation of clusters of molecules with inhomogeneity of polycrystals; and yielding/fracture with bulk properties of continuum specimens. Piecemeal results at the different scale levels are vulnerable to the possibility that they may be incompatible. The attention should therefore be focused on a single formulation that has the characteristics of multiscaling in size and time. The fact that the task may be overwhelmingly difficult cannot be used as an excuse for ignoring the fundamental aspects of the problem.Local nonlinearity is smeared into a small zone ahead of the crack. A “restrain stress” is introduced to also account for cracking at the meso-scale.The major emphasis is placed on developing a model that could exhibit the evolution characteristics of change in cracking behavior due to size and speed. Material inhomogeneity is assumed to favor self-similar crack growth although this may not always be the case. For relatively high restrain stress, the possible nucleation of micro-, meso- and macro-crack can be distinguished near the crack tip region. This distinction quickly disappears after a small distance after which scaling is no longer possible. This character prevails for Mode I and II cracking at different speeds. Special efforts are made to confine discussions within the framework of assumed conditions. To be kept in mind are the words of Isaac Newton in the Fourth Regula Philosophandi:

“Men are often led into error by the love of simplicity which disposes us to reduce things to few principles, and to conceive a greater simplicity in nature than there really is … We may learn something of the way in which nature operates from fact and observation; but if we conclude that it operates in such a manner, only because to our understanding that operates to be the best and simplest manner, we shall always go wrong.”––Isaac Newton

Stress intensity factor range and propagation mode of surface cracks under rolling–sliding contact

Finite element analyses were conducted in order to evaluate the mode I and mode II stress intensity factors for inclined edge cracks under cyclic contact load under rolling and rolling–sliding condition. The SIF range depends on crack orientation, crack length to Hertzian contact zone half-width ratio, friction between the crack faces and friction on the contact surface. The results were combined in two compact functions that determine the ΔK_I and ΔK_II values. The crack propagation mode and direction were investigated using both the maximum stress criterion and the minimum strain energy density criterion. The results are displayed in graph form, which allows a fast evaluation of the crack growth condition.     

Mixed Mode Dynamic Fracture in Particulate Reinforced Functionally Graded Materials

A detailed analytical and experimental investigation is presented to understand the dynamic fracture behavior of functionally graded materials (FGMs) under mode I and mixed mode loading conditions. Crack-tip stress, strain and displacement fields for a mixed mode crack propagating at an angle from the direction of property gradation were obtained through an asymptotic analysis coupled with a displacement potential approach. This was followed by a comprehensive series of experiments to gain further insight into the behavior of propagating cracks in FGMs. Dynamic photoelasticity coupled with high-speed photography was used to obtain crack tip velocities and dynamic stress fields around the propagating cracks. Birefringent coatings were used to conduct the photoelastic study due to the opaqueness of the FGMs. Dynamic fracture experiments were performed using different specimen geometries to develop a dynamic constitutive fracture relationship between the mode I dynamic stress intensity factor (K _ID ) and crack-tip velocity ( ) for FGMs with the crack moving in the direction of increasing fracture toughness. A similar -K _ID relation was also obtained for matrix material (polyester) for comparison purposes. The results obtained show that crack propagation velocities in FGMs were about 80% higher than the polyester matrix. Crack arrest toughness was found to be about 10% lower than the value of local fracture toughness in FGMs.     

Crack growth under plane stress conditions in an elastic perfectly-plastic material

Mode-I crack growth under conditions of generalized plane stress has been investigated. It has been assumed that near the plane of the crack in the loading zone, the simple stress components corresponding to a central fan field maintain validity up to the elastic-plastic boundary. By the use of expansions of the particle velocities in the coordinate y, and by matching of the relevant stress components and particle velocities to the dominant terms of appropriate elastic fields at the elastic-plastic boundary, a complete solution has been obtained for ε_y in the plane of the crack. The solution applies from the propagating crack tip up to the moving elastic-plastic boundary. The strain fields for a self-similar crack nucleating at a point and for steady-state propagation of a crack have been considered as special cases.