A generalized force measure of conditions at crack tips

A tentative measure of the forces tending to cause crack growth—the apparent crack extension force—is defined within the framework of continuum mechanics. By an associated fracture criterion initiation of growth may be predicted as well as the direction of preferred growth. The theory is specialized to elastic, viscoelastic and elastic-plastic materials. Under specified conditions the apparent crack extension force may be expressed by surface integrals over the boundary of an arbitrary part of the body for quasi-static deformation and for steady-state propagation of the crack. For plane deformation and for infinitesimal deformation under plane stress conditions these surface integrals reduce to path independent line integrals which include the J integral by Rice[1] and the G integral by Sih[2] as special cases.     

An antisymmetric problem of a penny-shaped crack in a piezoelectric medium

Summary  An exact, three-dimensional analysis is developed for a penny-shaped crack in an infinite transversely isotropic piezoelectric medium. The crack is assumed to be parallel to the plane of isotropy, with its faces subjected to a couple of concentrated normal forces and a couple of point electric charges that are antisymmetric with respect to the crack plane. The fundamental solution of a concentrated force and a point charge acting on the surface of a piezoelectric half-space is employed to derive the integral equations for the general boundary value problem. For the above antisymmetric crack problem, complete expressions for the elastoelectric field are obtained. A numerical calculation is finally performed to show the piezoelectric effect in piezoelectric materials. It is noted here that the present analysis is an extension of Fabrikant's theory for elasticity. Received 30 August 1999; accepted for publication 1 March 2000     

Discontinuous deformation gradients near the tip of a crack in finite anti-plane shear: an example

Summary This investigation aims at the elastostatic field near the edges (tips) of a plane crack of finite width in an all-round infinite body, which — at infinity — is subjected to a state of simple shear parallel to the crack edges. The analysis is carried out within the fully nonlinear equilibrium theory of homogeneous and isotropic, incompressible elastic solids. Further, the particular constitutive law employed here gives rise to a loss of ellipticity of the governing displacement equation of equilibrium in the presence of sufficiently severe anti-plane shear deformations.The study reported in this paper is asymptotic in the sense that the actual crack is replaced by a semi-infinite one, while the far field is required to match the elastostatic field predicted near the crack tips by the linearized theory for a crack of finite width. The ensuing global boundary-value problem thus characterizes the local state of affairs in the vicinity of a crack-tip, provided the amount of shear applied at infinity is suitably small.An explicit exact solution to this problem, which is deduced with the aid of the hodograph method, exhibits finite shear stresses at the tips of the crack, but involves two symmetrically located lines of displacement-gradient and stress discontinuity issuing from each crack-tip.The results communicated in this paper were obtained in the course of an investigation supported by Contract N00014-75-C-0196 with the Office of Naval Research in Washington, D.C.     

The singular elastostatic field due to a crack in rubberlike materials

Within the framework of finite-strain elastostatics an asymptotic analysis is carried out in order to calculate the singular field near the crack tip in a slab under conditions of plane deformation. A class of Ogden-Ball hyperelastic rubberlike materials and general loading conditions ensuring vanishing tractions on the crack faces near the crack tip are considered. It is shown that the singular deformation field near the crack tip can be specified by applying a rigid body rotation with a subsequent parallel translation to a so-called canonical field. The adjective canonical is adopted here to denote the field with symmetrically opening crack faces, just resembling the displacement field of the symmetric mode in linear elastic fracture mechanics. No analogy with the antisymmetric mode is possible, and the crack equilibrium criterion requires only one stress intensity factor to be determined.     

Stress state of a transversely isotropic magnetoelectroelastic body with a plane crack under antisymmetric loads

The static equilibrium of a transversely isotropic magnetoelectroelastic body with a plane crack of arbitrary shape in the isotropy plane under antisymmetric mechanical loading is studied. The relationships between the stress intensity factors (SIFs) for an infinite magnetoelectroelastic body and the SIFs for a purely elastic body with the same crack and under the same antisymmetric loading are established. This enables the SIFs for a magnetoelectroelastic body to be found directly from the analogous problem of elasticity. As an example of using this result, the SIFs for penny-shaped, elliptic, and parabolic cracks in a magnetoelectroelastic body under antisymmetric mechanical loading are found Translated from Prikladnaya Mekhanika, Vol. 44, No. 10, pp. 37–51, October 2008.     

Dependence of the Critical Load on the Geometric Characteristics of a Hinged Plate with a Crack

The plane problem of three-dimensional stability of a hinged plate with a central crack under uniaxial loading along the crack is considered. The net approach is used to solve the problem. The variational difference and gradient methods are used, respectively, to construct a difference scheme and to solve difference problems. The dependence of the critical load on two parameters — the crack length and the thickness ratio — is derived. Formulas for calculation of the critical load are given     

A centrally cracked thin circular disk, Part I: 3D Elastic–plastic finite element analysis

A full field solution, based on small deformation, three-dimensional elastic–plastic finite element analysis of the centrally cracked thin disk under mode I loading has been performed. The solution for the stresses under small-scale yielding and lo!cally fully plastic state has been compared with the HRR plane stress solution. At the outside of the 3D zone, within a distance of rσ_o/J=18, HRR dominance is maintained in the presence of a significant amount of compressive stress along the crack flanks. Ahead of this region, the HRR field overestimate the stresses. These results demonstrate a completely reversed state of stress in the near crack front compared to that in the plane strain case. The combined effect of geometry and finite thickness of the specimen on elastic–plastic crack tip stress field has been explored. To the best of our knowledge, such an attempt in the published literature has not been made yet. For the qualitative assessment of the results some of the field parameters have been compared to the available experimental results of K, gives a fair estimate of the crack opening stress near the crack front at a distance of order 10⁻² in. On the basis of this analysis, the Linear Elastic Fracture Mechanics approach has been adopted in analyzing the fatigue crack extension experiments performed in the disk (Part II).     

Effect of temperature on the fracture modes of BHW-35 steel under mode-II loading

Finite element method (FEM) has been used to analyze the stress and strain fields and the stress tri-axial levels around the tip of the crack under mode- II loading. The results show that: under mode- II loading, the direction of the maximum tensile stress and that of the maximum tri-axial levels (R _o ) exist at an angle of –75. 3° from the original crack plane; the maximum shear stress andR _o = 0 exist along the original crack plane.Mode- II loading experiment using BHW-35 steel at different temperatures show that there are two kinds of fracture mode, opening mode (or tensile mode) and sliding mode (or shear mode). A decrease in temperature causes the fracture mode to change from shear mode to tensile mode. For BHW-35 steel, this critical temperature is about –90 C. Actually, under any kind of loading mode (mode I . mode II , mode III or mixed mode), there always exist several kinds of potenital fracture modes (for example, opening mode, sliding mode, tearing mode or mixed mode). The effect of temperature under mode- II loading is actually related to the change of the elastic-plastic properties of the material.     

New Solitary Waves in Elastic Materials: Existence and Nonlinear Interaction

Waves mentioned in the title were revealed in composite materials that are described by the microstructural theory of the second order — the theory of two-phase mixtures. For harmonic periodic waves, a mixture is always a dispersive medium. This medium admits existence of other waves — waves with profiles described by functions of mathematical physics (the Chebyshov–Hermite, Whittaker, Mathieu, and Lamé functions). If the initial profile of a plane wave is chosen in the form of the Chebyshev–Hermite or Whittaker function, then the wave may be regarded as an aperiodic solitary wave. The dispersivity of a mixture as a nonlinear frequency dependence of phase velocities transforms for nonperiodic solitary waves into a nonlinear phase-dependence of wave velocities. This and some other properties of such waves permit us to state that these waves fall into a new class of waves in materials, which is intermediate between the classical simple waves and the classical dispersion traveling waves. The existence of these new waves is proved in a computer analysis of phase-velocity-versus-phase plots. One of the main results of the interaction study is proof of the existence of this interaction itself. Some features of the wave interaction — triplets and the concept of synchronization — are commented on     

Analysis of crack moving and curving in anisotropic solids

The general equations for a dynamically curved crack in an anisotropic solid are derived, and the asymptotic fields of a moving crack under arbitrary distributed loading on the crack surface are calculated from them. For a moving crack under mixed-mode loading conditions a general Muskhelishvili type approach is proposed to calculate intensity factors due to crack surface loading in anisotropic materials. The kinking and curving caused by dynamic loading in anisotropic materials are calculated using the maximum normal stress ratio criterion. The results show that cracks in anisotropic solids may deviate from the straight path and approach a direction parallel to the stiff axis even under symmetric loading and that a crack will tend to deviate more from the crack path to the direction of the stiff axis as the crack speed becomes higher.     

Fatigue crack-tip plasticity revisited — The issue of shape addressed

The problems pertaining to the fatigue loading of engineering structures under single overloads and variable amplitude loading involve the estimation of plasticity affected zones ahead of the crack-tip. The most widely used model for fatigue crack-tip plasticity estimation is based on Dugdale's model, which is valid for plane stress conditions and assumes, contrary to the findings of various experimental and numerical investigations, that the plasticity zone is of vanishingly small height. Plasticity and its influence on the rate at which fatigue cracks grow came to be widely acknowledged particularly after the phenomenon of crack closure was discovered by Elber. Since crack closure involves the plasticity in the wake of the advancing crack, Newman modified Dugdale's model by attaching appendages of plastically deformed material to the flanks of the crack. Several modifications to the Dugdale's model appeared subsequently in the literature. In this work after a survey of crack-tip plasticity, a novel way of estimating plasticity affected zones is presented. Three important parameters: Poisson's ratio ν, load ratio and shape ratio β that affect the size and shape of the zone are identified. Two yield criteria, the von Mises and Tresca, are compared. It was found that an increase in the value of ν has, in general, a shrinkage effect on the zone size, while, an increase in is found to have a swelling effect. The value of β was found to increase dramatically for high values of ν.     

Meshless analysis of plasticity with application to crack growth problems

The governing equations for classical rate-independent plasticity are formulated in the framework of meshless method. The special J₂ flow theory for three-dimensional, two-dimensional plane strain and plane stress problems are presented. The numerical procedures, including return mapping algorithm, to obtain the solutions of boundary-value problems in computational plasticity are outlined. For meshless analysis the special treatment of the presence of barriers and mirror symmetries is formulated. The crack growth process in elastic–plastic solid under plane strain and plane stress conditions is analyzed. Numerical results are presented and discussed.     

The investigation on dynamic fracture behavour of materials under compressive-shear combined stress waves

In this paper, an improved plate impact experimental technique is presented for studying dynamic fracture mechanism of materials, under the conditions that the impacting loading is provided by a single pulse and the loading time is in the sub-microsecond range. The impacting tests are carried out on the pressure-shear gas gun. The loading rate achieved is dK/dt∼10⁸ MPa m^1/2s⁻¹. With the elimination of influence of the specimen boundary, the plane strain state of a semi-infinite crack in an infinite elastic plate is used to simulate the deformation fields of crack tip. The single pulses are obtained by using the “momentum trap” technique. Therefore, the one-time actions of the single pulse are achieved by eradicating the stress waves reflected from the specimen boundary or diffracted from the crack surfaces. In the current study, some important phenomena have been observed. The special loading of the single pulse can bring about material damage around crack tip, and affect the material behavior, such as kinking and branching of the crack propagation. Failure mode transitions from mode I to mode II crack are observed under asymmetrical impact conditions. The mechanisms of the dynamic crack propagation are consistent with the damage failure model. The project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 19672066 and 18981180-4) and the Key Project of Chinese Academy of Sciences (No. KJ951-1-20)     

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.     

Analytic solutions to crack tip plastic zone under various loading conditions

Based on stress field equations and Hill yield criterion, the crack tip plastic zone is determined for orthotropic materials and isotropic materials under small-scale yielding condition. An analytical solution to calculating the crack tip plastic zone in plane stress states is presented. The shape and size of the plastic zone are analyzed under different loading conditions. The obtained results show that the crack tip plastic zones present “butterfly-like” shapes, and the elastic–plastic boundary is smooth. The size of the plastic zone for orthotropic composites is less at the crack tip for various loading conditions, compared with the case of isotropic materials. Crack inclination angle and loading conditions affect greatly the size and shape of crack tip plastic zone. The mode I crack has a crucial effect on the plastic zone for mixed mode case in plane stress state. The plastic zone for pure mode I crack and pure mode II crack have a symmetrical distribution to the initial crack plane.     

J-integral and crack driving force in elastic–plastic materials

This paper discusses the crack driving force in elastic–plastic materials, with particular emphasis on incremental plasticity. Using the configurational forces approach we identify a “plasticity influence term” that describes crack tip shielding or anti-shielding due to plastic deformation in the body. Standard constitutive models for finite strain as well as small strain incremental plasticity are used to obtain explicit expressions for the plasticity influence term in a two-dimensional setting. The total dissipation in the body is related to the near-tip and far-field J-integrals and the plasticity influence term. In the special case of deformation plasticity the plasticity influence term vanishes identically whereas for rigid plasticity and elastic-ideal plasticity the crack driving force vanishes. For steady state crack growth in incremental elastic–plastic materials, the plasticity influence term is equal to the negative of the plastic work per unit crack extension and the total dissipation in the body due to crack propagation and plastic deformation is determined by the far-field J-integral. For non-steady state crack growth, the plasticity influence term can be evaluated by post-processing after a conventional finite element stress analysis. Theory and computations are applied to a stationary crack in a C(T)-specimen to examine the effects of contained, uncontained and general yielding. A novel method is proposed for evaluating J-integrals under incremental plasticity conditions through the configurational body force. The incremental plasticity near-tip and far-field J-integrals are compared to conventional deformational plasticity and experimental J-integrals.     

A dynamic model of bridging fiber pull-out of composite materials

An elastic analysis of an internal central crack with bridging fibers parallel to the free surface in an infinite orthotropic anisotropic elastic plane is carried out. In this paper a dynamic model of bridging fiber pull-out is presented for analyzing the distributions stress and displacement of composite materials with the internal central crack under the loading conditions of an applied non-uniform stress and the traction forces on crack faces yielded by the fiber pull-out model. Thus the fiber failure is determined by maximum tensile stress, the fiber breaks and hence the crack propagation should occur in self-similar fashion. By reducing the dynamic model to the Keldysh–Sedov mixed boundary value problem, a straightforward and easy analytical solution can be attained. When the crack extends, its fibers continue to break. Analytical study on the crack extension under the action of an inhomogeneous point force Px/t, Pt is obtained for orthotropic anisotropic body, respectively; and it can be utilized to attain the concrete solutions of the model by the ways of superposition.     

Debonding of graded coatings under in-plane compression

Graded materials are multiphase composites with continuously varying thermophysical properties. The concept provides material scientists and engineers with an important tool to develop new materials tailored for some specific applications. One such application of this new class of materials is as top coats or interfacial regions in thermal barrier systems. A widely observed failure mode in these layered materials is known to be interfacial cracking that leads to spallation. In many cases it is the buckling instability of coating under mechanically or thermally induced compressive stresses that triggers spallation. Under in-plane loading since the linear elastic small deformation theory gives only a trivial solution, in this study the plane strain interface crack problem for a graded coating bonded to a homogeneous substrate is formulated by using a kinematically nonlinear continuum theory. Both the instability and the postbuckling problems are considered. The main objective of the study is the investigation of the influence of material nonhomogeneity, kinematic nonlinearity and plate approximation on the critical instability load and on such fracture mechanics parameters as strain energy release rate, stress intensity factors and crack opening displacements.     

Discontinuous deformation gradients in plane finite elastostatics of incompressible materials

Summary This investigation is concerned with the possibility of the change of type of the differential equations governing finite plane elastostatics for incompressible elastic materials, and the related issue of the existence of equilibrium fields with discontinuous deformation gradients. Explicit necessary and sufficient conditions on the deformation invariants and the material for the ellipticity of the plane displacement equations of equilibrium are established. The issue of the existence, locally, of elastostatic shocks—elastostatic fields with continuous displacements and discontinuous deformation gradients—is then investigated. It is shown that an elastostatic shock exists only if the governing field equations suffer a loss of ellipticity at some deformation. Conversely, if the governing field equations have lost ellipicity at a given deformation at some point, an elastostatic shock can exist, locally, at that point. The results obtained are valid for an arbitrary homogeneous, isotropic, incompressible, elastic material.The results communicated in this paper were obtained in the course of an investigation supported by Contract N00014-75-C-0196 with the Office of Naval Research in Washington D.C.     

Nonlinear Antiplane Deformation of an Elastic Body

The antiplane elastic deformation of a homogeneous isotropic prestretched cylindrical body is studied in a nonlinear formulation in actual–state variables under incompressibility conditions, the absence of volume forces, and under constant lateral loading along the generatrix. The boundary–value problem of axial displacement is obtained in Cartesian and complex variables and sufficient ellipticity conditions for this problem are indicated in terms of the elastic potential. The similarity to a plane vortex–free gas flow is established. The problem is solved for Mooney and Rivlin—Sonders materials simulating strong elastic deformations of rubber–like materials. Axisymmetric solutions are considered.