On debonding and delamination effects in adhesively bonded cracks —A boundary integral approach

Summary The present paper studies the influence of adhesives on the behaviour of cracks in two-dimensional linear elastic bodies. Especially the delamination and debonding effects are studied. The adhesive material is assumed to introduce non-monotone, possibly multivalued laws which can be described via non-convex superpotentials. The direct boundary integral equation method is extended for this problem. It gives rise to two equivalent multivalued integral equations holding on each crack. Numerical examples concerning the resulting stress intensity factors illustrate the theory.

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Über Entklebe- und Delaminationseffekte in adhäsiv geklebten Rissen — Eine Randintegralmethode

Übersicht In dieser Arbeit wird der Einfluß von adhäsiven Materialien auf das Verhalten der Risse in zweidimensionalen linear-elastischen Körpern untersucht. Insbesondere werden Delaminations- und Entklebeeffekte behandelt. Es wird angenommen, daß das adhäsive Material ein nichtmonotones mehrdeutiges Gesetz einführt, das durch nichtkonvexe Superpotentiale beschreiben werden kann. Die direkte Randwertintegralmethode wird für dieses Problem erweitert. Man erhält zwei äquivalente, mehrdeutige Integralgleichungen für jeden Riß. Die Theorie wird durch numerische Beispiele erläutert, die die Berechnung der auftretenden Spannungskonzentrationsfaktoren betreffen.

     

A theoretical study of a thin-film delamination using shaft-loaded blister test: Constitutive relation without delamination

This paper presents exact solutions for nonlinear large deflection of thin circular membrane loaded by a central point force using blister test with two types of boundary conditions and with or without residual stress cases. A comparison with existing solutions is presented, and a geometrically nonlinear finite element analysis (FEA) is conducted to verify our analytical solutions.     

A thermomechanical cohesive zone model for bridged delamination cracks

The coupled thermomechanical numerical analysis of composite laminates with bridged delamination cracks loaded by a temperature gradient is described. The numerical approach presented is based on the framework of a cohesive zone model. A traction-separation law is presented which accounts for breakdown of the micromechanisms responsible for load transfer across bridged delamination cracks. The load transfer behavior is coupled to heat conduction across the bridged delamination crack. The coupled crack-bridging model is implemented into a finite element framework as a thermomechanical cohesive zone model (CZM). The fundamental response of the thermomechanical CZM is described. Subsequently, bridged delamination cracks of fixed lengths are studied. Values of the crack tip energy release rate and of the crack heat flux are computed to characterize the loading of the structure. Specimen geometries are considered that lead to crack opening through bending deformation and buckling delamination. The influence of critical mechanical and thermal parameters of the bridging zone on the thermomechanical delamination behavior is discussed. Bridging fibers not only contribute to crack conductance, but by keeping the crack opening small they allow heat flux across the delamination crack to be sustained longer, and thereby contribute to reduced levels of thermal stresses. The micro-mechanism based cohesive zone model allows the assessment of the effectiveness of the individual mechanisms contributing to the thermomechanical crack bridging embedded into the structural analysis.     

Buckling delamination in compressed multilayers on curved substrates with accompanying ridge cracks

Residually compressed films and coatings are susceptible to buckle delamination. The buckles often have linear or telephone cord morphology. When the films are brittle, such buckles are susceptible to the formation of ridge cracks that extend along their length, terminating close to the propagating front. The ridge-cracked buckles are invariably straight-sided (not telephone cord) and differ in width. Buckle delaminations of this type occur on flat and curved substrates: having greatest technological relevance in the latter. They occur not only in single layer films but also in multilayers, such as thermal barrier systems. Establishing the mechanics of ridge-cracked buckle delaminations for multilayers on curved substrates serves two purposes. (a) It allows the prediction of buckle delamination and spalling for technologically important systems. (b) It provides a test protocol for measuring properties such as the delamination toughness of the interface and the stresses in the layers. Both objectives are addressed in the article: the latter by devising an inverse algorithm. Implementation of the algorithm is demonstrated for diamond-like carbon films on planar glass substrates and a thermal barrier multilayer on a curved superalloy substrate.     

The growth simulation of circular buckling-driven delamination

Some closed-form equations for the coupling problem of buckling and growth of circular delamination are derived by recourse to the moving boundary variational principle. The axisymmetric buckling of a circular delamination subjected to an equal bi-axial compression is analysed by using high-order perturbation expansion. The axisymmetric buckled delamination has the following properties : under a certain residual pressure, there exist two characteristic radii, namely the critical radius R_c and growing radius R_g; for a certain interface toughness, the blister has three configuration of stationary, stable growth and unstable growth with increasing the loads. Under a higher edge thrust, the nonaxisymmetric secondary buckling will occur on the base of axisymmetric buckling and then the toughness and the driving force of the interface crack will be different along the delamination front. So the growth of circular delamination will not be self-similar. Without any assumption regarding the delamination front, the configurations of the blister with several nonaxisymmetric buckling modes n = 2, 3, 6, 8 are simulated. The nonaxisymmetric growth process for the nonaxisymmetric buckling mode n = 2 is simulated also under a sequence of loads.     

Stress state characterization of delamination cracks in [0/90] symmetric laminates by BEM

The presence in a laminate of plies oriented at 90° with respect to the preferred direction of load generates almost immediately the appearance in these plies of cracks transverse to the load (parallel to the fibres in the lamina). These cracks reach the interface with the neighbouring ply, which in this paper will be considered oriented 0° with respect to the direction of the load. This may cause the bifurcation of the crack, which now appears propagating as a delamination crack between the two plies. The objective of this study is to characterize the stress state at the tip of both, the transverse crack in the 90° ply reaching the interface with the 0° ply, and the delamination crack for different lengths of the debonding. The analysis is performed by means of the Boundary Element Method allowing contact, without or with friction, to take place between the faces of the crack. The plies are considered as equivalent homogeneous bodies under a generalized plane strain state. The results are compared with those predicted by the open and contact models of Interfacial Fracture Mechanics. Accurate knowledge of the stress state at the neighbourhood of the tips of the cracks studied is necessary to generate failure criteria based on Fracture Mechanics parameters to predict the appearance and growth of the type of damage described.     

Effects of voids on postbuckling delamination growth in unidirectional composites

This work examines the effects of manufacturing induced voids on the postbuckling behavior of delaminated unidirectional composites. In the finite element model developed, a through-width delamination is introduced close to one surface of a flat panel, and a void is placed in the delamination plane ahead of each delamination front. The panel is subjected to compression in the fiber direction. The postbuckling delamination growth is studied by calculating the strain energy release rate (SERR) using the virtual crack closure technique. Local stress analyses of the region near the delamination front are also performed to further investigate the void effects. It is found that although the presence of void does not significantly alter the postbuckling transverse displacement of the delaminated panel, the induced stress perturbation by the void affects the SERR. The Mode II SERR as well as the total SERR increase depending on the size of the void and its distance from the delamination front. Since the Mode I SERR shows non-monotonic behavior with the applied load, the effects of voids are studied on its maximum value.     

A new failure mechanism in thin film by collaborative fracture and delamination: Interacting duos of cracks

When a thin film moderately adherent to a substrate is subjected to residual stress, the cooperation between fracture and delamination leads to unusual fracture patterns, such as spirals, alleys of crescents and various types of strips, all characterized by a robust characteristic length scale. We focus on the propagation of a duo of cracks: two fractures in the film connected by a delamination front and progressively detaching a strip. We show experimentally that the system selects an equilibrium width on the order of 25 times the thickness of the coating and independent of both fracture and adhesion energies. We investigate numerically the selection of the width and the condition for propagation by considering Griffith's criterion and the principle of local symmetry. In addition, we propose a simplified model based on the criterion of maximum of energy release rate, which provides insights of the physical mechanisms leading to these regular patterns, and predicts the effect of material properties on the selected width of the detaching strip.     

Fatigue growth modeling of cracks emanating from a circular hole in infinite plate

This paper presents a numerical approach of fatigue growth analysis of cracks emanating from a hole in infinite elastic plate subjected to remote loads. It involves a generation of Bueckner’s principle and a hybrid displacement discontinuity method (a boundary element method) proposed recently by the senior author of the paper. Because of an intrinsic feature of the boundary element method, a general crack growth problem can be solved in a single region formulation. In the numerical simulation, for each increment of crack extension, remeshing of existing boundaries is not necessary. Crack extension is modeled conveniently by adding new boundary elements on the incremental crack extension to the previous crack boundaries. As an example, fatigue growth process of an inclined crack in an infinite plate under uniaxial cycle load is modeled to illustrate the effectiveness of the numerical approach. In addition, fatigue growth of cracks emanating from a circular hole in infinite elastic plate subjected to remote loads is investigated by using the numerical approach. Many numerical results are given     

Steady growth of cracks in compressible elastic-plastic media

Based on the theoretical framework for crack growth analysis provided by Gao and Hwang, the 5-sector solution of near-tip fields of mode-I cracks growing quasi-statically and steadily in compressible elastic perfectly plastic materials is obtained. As Poisson's ratio ν tends to 1/2, the 5-sector solution degenerates to the 4-sector solution of near-tip fields of crack growth in incompressible elastic perfectly plastic materials. The project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China.     

An analysis of axisymmetric buckling and growth of circular-shaped delamination

The buckling and post-buckling of clamped circular plate subjected to distributed radial compressed load is presented by using the high-order perturbation analysis and shooting method. The sixth-order solution shows good agreement with the FEM results in [11]. The results in this paper are applied to investigate the buckling and growth of pressed thin film delamination in the film/substrate system. Under a certain residual pressure in the thin film, two characteristic blister radiiR _c andR _g, the critical radius and growing radius respectively, are obtained. The numerical result shows that the growth criterion of delamination in [9,10] is not perfect. In variant residual stress or interface toughness, the conditions of no growth, stable growth and unstable growth of the delamination are obtained by comparing the driving force at the interface crack tip with the interface toughness.This project is supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China.     

Numerical analysis of delamination growth for stiffened composite laminated plates

A study of postbuckling and delamination propagation behavior in delaminated stiffened composite plates was presented. A methodology was proposed for simulating the multi-failure responses, such as initial and postbuckling, delamination onset and propagation, etc. A finite element analysis was conducted on the basis of the Mindlin first order shear effect theory and the von-K6rm~n nonlinear deformation assumption. The total energy release rate used as the criteria of delamination growth was estimated with virtual crack closure technique (VCCT). A self-adaptive grid moving technology was adopted to model the delamination growth process. Moreover, the contact effect along delamination front was also considered during the numerical simulation process. By some numerical examples, the influence of distribution and location of stiffener, configuration and size of the delamination, boundary condition and contact effect upon the delamination growth behavior of the stiffened composite plates were investigated. The method and numerical conclusion provided should be of great value to engineers dealing with composite structures.     

On the relationship between impact energy and delamination area

Thin glass/epoxy plates fabricated from 3M prepreg tape were subjected to low-velocity impact. Delamination in the impacted composite plates was measured by edge replication and was identified as the major damage mode. The effects of fiber orientation, thickness, and lamination on the delamination resistance were investigated. Experimental results verified three previous findings: (1) a linear relationship holds between delamination area and impact energy, (2) the mismatch of bending stiffness between adjacent laminae can be correlated with the delamination area on the interface, and (3) the behavior of a thin composite plate under low-velocity impact is very similar to that caused by global bending. In addition, based on the calculation of impact energy per unit delamination area, the dynamic fracture energy and the energy of dissipation in the thin glass/epoxy plates can be examined.     

Analytical model for delamination growth during small mass impact on plates

An analytical model is presented for delamination initiation and growth and the resulting response during small mass impact on orthotropic laminated composite plates, which typically is caused by runway debris and other small objects. The solution is obtained by a fast stepwise numerical solution of a single integral equation. Delamination size, load and deflection history are predicted by extension of an earlier elastic impact model by the author. Good agreement is demonstrated in comparisons with finite element simulations and experiments.     

Homogenization of delamination growth in an ACA flip-chip joint based on micropolar theory

In the present paper the delamination mechanism of a typical internal structure of the anisotropic conductive adhesive (ACA) interconnect for electronic packaging is modeled on the basis of micropolar theory and computational homogenization. The interface is treated as a finite Representative Volume Element (RVE), across which the macroscopic deformation is expressed in terms of regularized strong displacement and rotational discontinuities. For the microstructure of the RVE, the micro-macro kinematical coupling is considered as a Taylor series expansion in the regularized macroscopic discontinuities, and, connected to that, a discontinuous fluctuation field representing the microstructural variation is included to describe delamination on the microlevel. As to the microlevel delamination modeling, on the basis of the discontinuous fluctuation field, a damage coupled to slip and dilation formulation is used to model the interface degradation. The constitutive relations are established in a thermodynamic setting, where the interfacial free energy involves internal variables of damage and plastic deformation. The parameters of the interface are calibrated so that a predefined amount of fracture energy is dissipated in mode I. In the numerical example, the response of a planar interface is considered when it is subjected to the basic modes I-II and also the non-conventional rotational discontinuity mode. Case studies on fracture and geometry parameters have also been carried out. Finally, an uncoupled thermomechanical analysis of a microsystem involving a representative ACA microstructure has been made for the understanding of the microscopic delamination during a thermal cycling procedure.     

On the dynamics of cracks in three dimensions

We introduce a three-dimensional dynamic crack propagation law, which is derived from Hamilton's principle. The result is an extension of a previous one obtained, corresponding to the two-dimensional case. As a matter of fact, in an orthogonal plane to the crack front, the geometric condition to be satisfied over the path is the same as in two dimensions. The third mode enters only through the energy release rate. The fact that the physics of the problem is locally two dimensional is a consequence of the virtual motions allowed in the set of admissible crack configurations.     

Fatigue crack growth of surface cracks in the rail web

The analytical prediction of surface cracks in the rail web is investigated by two different approaches. The first approach uses engineering fracture mechanics principles with elementary beam theory (i.e., one dimensional) stress analysis. The second approach applies the strain energy density criterion to a three dimensional finite element stress analysis of the rail web. Results are presented in terms of crack size as a function of accumulated tonnage for variations in loading (tangent or curved track), support conditions (foundation modulus), and assumed levels of residual stress. The results of both models are consistent in that the predicted growth rates are fairly slow when compared to other types of rail defects (for example, the detail fracture in the rail head).