Mechanics and fracture of crack tip deformable bi-material interface

Novel interface deformable bi-layer beam theory is developed to account for local effects at crack tip of bi-material interface by modeling a bi-layer composite beam as two separate shear deformable sub-layers with consideration of crack tip deformation. Unlike the sub-layer model in the literature in which the crack tip deformations under the interface peel and shear stresses are ignored and thus a “rigid” joint is used, the present study introduces two interface compliances to account for the effect of interface stresses on the crack tip deformation which is referred to as the elastic foundation effect; thus a flexible condition along the interface is considered. Closed-form solutions of resultant forces, deformations, and interface stresses are obtained for each sub-layer in the bi-layer beam, of which the local effects at the crack tip are demonstrated. In this study, an elastic deformable crack tip model is presented for the first time which can improve the split beam solution. The present model is in excellent agreements with analytical 2-D continuum solutions and finite element analyses. The resulting crack tip rotation is then used to calculate the energy release rate (ERR) and stress intensity factor (SIF) of interface fracture in bi-layer materials. Explicit closed-form solutions for ERR and SIF are obtained for which both the transverse shear and crack tip deformation effects are accounted. Compared to the full continuum elasticity analysis, such as finite element analysis, the present solutions are much explicit, more applicable, while comparable in accuracy. Further, the concept of deformable crack tip model can be applied to other bi-layer beam analyses (e.g., delamination buckling and vibration, etc.).     

Deflection criterion of a crack approaching a bi-material interface obliquely

Deflection criterion for oblique cracks terminating at a bi-material interface was established numerically based on a remote loading condition where the crack deflection event took place well within the K-dominant stress field. The criterion was described in terms of the ratio of the energy release rate of a deflected crack (G _d) to the maximum energy release rate of a penetrated crack (). The criterion was markedly more conservative than the existing solution based on wedge loading which did not converge with respect to limited number of a/L ratios in the literature (a is the size of the putative crack; L is the loading distance). Further, the criterion established herein for the cracks slightly oblique from the normal direction to the interface was more conservative than the crack normal to the interface.     

Creep behavior of crack near bi-material interface characterized by integral parameters

Creep behavior of crack in dissimilar materials is studied using steady-state C^* path independent integral and ABAQUS finite element code. The specific geometry involves an edge crack parallel to the interface of a bi-material tensile specimen at high temperature. Under extensive creep, the C^* value for the bi-material specimen can be significantly higher than that for the homogeneous specimen. For small-scale creep material mismatch has little influence on the transient integral designated by C_t. The integral parameters C^* or C_t are shown to depend on the inhomogeneity of the system and cannot characterize the creep behavior of cracks.The approach is extended to creep crack growth in a welded compact tension specimen. Modification factors are introduced for different crack and weld interface geometries.     

Analysis of stress intensity factor in orthotropic bi-material mixed interface crack

Adopting the complex function approach, the paper studies the stress intensity factor in orthotropic bi-material interface cracks under mixed loads. With consideration of the boundary conditions, a new stress function is introduced to transform the problem of bi-material interface crack into a boundary value problem of partial differential equations. Two sets of non-homogeneous linear equations with 16 unknowns are constructed. By solving the equations, the expressions for the real bi-material elastic constant εt and the real stress singularity exponents λt are obtained with the bi-material engineering parameters satisfying certain conditions. By the uniqueness theorem of limit,undetermined coefficients are determined, and thus the bi-material stress intensity factor in mixed cracks is obtained. The bi-material stress intensity factor characterizes features of mixed cracks. When orthotropic bi-materials are of the same material, the degenerate solution to the stress intensity factor in mixed bi-material interface cracks is in complete agreement with the present classic conclusion. The relationship between the bi-material stress intensity factor and the ratio of bi-material shear modulus and the relationship between the bi-material stress intensity factor and the ratio of bi-material Young's modulus are given in the numerical analysis.     

Limited permeable crack moving along the interface of a piezoelectric bi-material

A plane problem for a crack moving with a subsonic speed along the interface of two piezoelectric semi-infinite spaces is considered. The crack is assumed to be free from mechanical loading. The limited permeable electric condition with an account of electric traction is adopted at its faces. A uniformly distributed mixed mode mechanical loading and an electric flux are prescribed at infinity. The problem is reduced to the Riemann–Hilbert problem by means of introducing a moving coordinate system and assuming that the electric flux is uniformly distributed along the crack region. An exact solution of this problem is proposed. It permits to find in closed form all necessary electromechanical characteristics at the interface and to formulate the equation for the determination of the electric flux. Analysis of this equation confirms the correctness of the assumption concerning the uniform distribution of the electric flux in the crack region. The values of the electric flux are determined by solving the obtained equation. Thereafter, the stress and electric intensity factors as well as their asymptotic fields at the crack tip are also found. The particular case of a crack moving in a homogeneous piezoelectric material is considered. The values of the electric flux and the fracture parameters are found exactly in a simple form for this case. Also, a numerical analysis is performed for a crack propagating with a subsonic speed between PZT4 and PZT5 materials and for a crack moving in PZT4 material. The electric flux in the crack region, stress and electric intensity factors, crack opening and the energy release rate (ERR) are found as functions of the crack speed, loading and electric permeability of the crack medium. The influence of the electric traction on the crack faces upon the mentioned parameters is demonstrated.     

Penetration direction of a crack terminating at a bi-material interface obliquely

Crack penetration direction at a bi-material planar interface has been investigated numerically as a function of primary crack obliquity. Crack penetration angle prefers to follow the normal direction to the interface unless the crack obliquity is overly high. The retarded offset of the penetration angle from the direction normal to the interface is more apparent as Dunders’ parameter α decreases to −0.9, whereas the increase in α toward 0.9 fosters the offset of the penetration angle from the direction normal to the interface. This behavior has been well explained qualitatively in terms of the phase angle of the primary crack.     

A solution to the thermo-elastic interface crack branching in dissimilar anisotropic bi-material media

An interface crack or delamination may often branch out of the interface in a laminated composite due to thermal stresses developing around the delamination/crack tip when the media is exposed to heat flow induced by environmental events such as a sudden short-duration fire. In this paper, the thermo-elastic problem of interface crack branching in dissimilar anisotropic bi-media is studied by using the theory of Stroh’s dislocation formalism, extended to thermo-elasticity in matrix notation. Based on the complex variable method and the analytical continuation principle, the thermo-elastic interface crack/delamination problem is examined and a general solution in compact form is derived for dissimilar anisotropic bi-media. A set of Green’s functions is proposed for the dislocations (conventional dislocation and thermal dislocation/heat vortex) in anisotropic bi-media. These functions may be more suitable than those which have appeared in the literature on addressing thermo-elastic interface crack branching in dissimilar anisotropic bi-materials. Using the contour integral method, a closed form solution to the interaction between the dislocations and the interface crack is obtained. Within the scope of linear fracture mechanics, the thermo-elastic problem of interface crack branching is then solved by modelling the branched portion as a continuous distribution of dislocations. The influence of thermal loading and thermal properties on the branching behavior is examined, and criteria for predicting interface crack branching are suggested, based on the extensive numerical results from the study of various cases.     

Analysis of bi-material interface cracks with complex weighting functions and non-standard quadrature

A boundary element formulation is developed to determine the complex stress intensity factors associated with cracks on the interface between dissimilar materials. This represents an extension of the methodology developed previously by the authors for determination of free-edge generalized stress intensity factors on bi-material interfaces, which employs displacements and weighted tractions as primary variables. However, in the present work, the characteristic oscillating stress singularity is addressed through the introduction of complex weighting functions for both displacements and tractions, along with corresponding non-standard numerical quadrature formulas. As a result, this boundary-only approach provides extremely accurate mesh-insensitive solutions for a range of two-dimensional interface crack problems. A number of computational examples are considered to assess the performance of the method in comparison with analytical solutions and previous work on the subject. As a final application, the method is applied to study the scaling behavior of epoxy–metal butt joints.     

Comparison of energy release rate and minimum strain energy density for potential failure of composite with bi-material interface

An analytical method is developed to describe the fields of stress and displacement in a bi-material strip specimen with an edge interfacial crack. All of the basic governing equations, boundary conditions on crack surfaces and conditions of continuity along the interface are satisfied by the eigenfunction expansion method. The other boundary conditions are satisfied by the generalized variational principle. The stress intensity factors are calculated for determining the energy release rate and minimum strain energy density factor S_min that is used the strain energy density criterion. Problems with oscillatory singularity and contact zone are discussed. Not only the effects of bi-material modulus ratio, thickness ratio, Poisson's ratio and crack length to S_min, but also the influences of bi-material modulus ratio, thickness ratio to phase angle are presented. Among these parameters, particular situations where S_min become jeopardously high and lead to failure are discussed.     

Evaluation of stress intensity factors for bi-material interface cracks using displacement jump methods

The aim of the present work is to investigate the numerical modeling of interfacial cracks that may appear at the interface between two isotropic elastic materials. The extended finite element method is employed to analyze brittle and bi-material interfacial fatigue crack growth by computing the mixed mode stress intensity factors (SIF). Three different approaches are introduced to compute the SIFs. In the first one, mixed mode SIF is deduced from the computation of the contour integral as per the classical J-integral method, whereas a displacement method is used to evaluate the SIF by using either one or two displacement jumps located along the crack path in the second and third approaches. The displacement jump method is rather classical for mono-materials, but has to our knowledge not been used up to now for a bi-material. Hence, use of displacement jump for characterizing bi-material cracks constitutes the main contribution of the present study. Several benchmark tests including parametric studies are performed to show the effectiveness of these computational methodologies for SIF considering static and fatigue problems of bi-material structures. It is found that results based on the displacement jump methods are in a very good agreement with those of exact solutions, such as for the J-integral method, but with a larger domain of applicability and a better numerical efficiency (less time consuming and less spurious boundary effect).     

SH 波入射时半空间界面裂纹与圆形衬砌的相互作用

利用复变函数和Green函数法研究了双相介质半空间界面裂纹及界面附近圆形衬砌对SH 波的散射与动应力集中问题。首先,采用映像思想构造满足自由边界条件的散射波表达式,进而求解所需的Green函数;其次,采用裂纹切割技术构造裂纹,并根据连续性条件建立了求解该问题的无穷代数方程组;最后,给出了不同入射波数时界面裂纹与衬砌的相互作用。结果表明,裂纹的存在显著放大了衬砌界面的动应力集中。     

Dynamic interaction between a sub-interface crack and the interface in a bi-material: time-domain BEM analysis

Summary Transient response of a sub-interface crack in a bi-material is studied with emphasis on the dynamic interaction between the crack and the interface, by combining the traditional time-domain displacement boundary element method (BEM) and the non-hypersingular traction BEM. Computations are performed for an unbounded bi-material with a crack subjected to impact tensile loading on its faces or incident impact waves and a bounded rectangular bi-material plate under remote impact tensile loading. Numerical results of the dynamic stress intensity factors (DSIFs) and dynamic interface tractions are presented for various material combinations and crack locations. It is shown that pronounced increases in DSIFs and the interface tractions may be caused in some cases because of the dynamic interaction between the crack and the interface.This work was initialized during the second author's stay at Institute of Mechanics, TU Darmstadt, Germany under the support of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. Discussion on the BEM formulation with Dr. Seelig is gratefully acknowledged. The first two authors are also grateful for the partial support by the China National Natural Science Foundation under Grant No. 10025211 and the NJTU Scientific Paper Fund (PD195).     

具有梯度界面层的双材料悬臂梁解析解

采用应力函数法,求得了具有弹性模量沿高度线性变化的梯度界面层的双材料悬臂梁在均布载荷作用下的应力和位移解析解。该解可退化为双材料梁、弹性模量沿整个梁高线性变化的梯度梁以及均质材料梁的情况,退化为均质材料梁时与已有结果一致。通过一具体算例将得到的解析解与有限元解进行了比较,两者吻合较好。并讨论了梯度界面层的高度变化对梁中的应力和梁端挠度的影响。结果表明,在梁的总高度不变的情况下,增加梯度界面层的高度可减小弯曲应力和梁端挠度,而对挤压应力和切应力的影响很小。     

Nuclei of strain for bi-material elastic media with sliding interface

The nuclei of strain method, which was previously developed for a perfectly bonded bi-material elastic medium, is modified to obtain the fundamental solutions for the elastic state of a bi-material, isotropic elastic medium with sliding interface. The solutions are conveniently expressed in terms of strength vectors at object and image points which are related by the transmission and reflection matrices given in the paper.     

Bueckner's work conjugate integrals and weight functions for a crack in anisotropic solids

The Bueckner work conjugate integrals are studied for cracks in anisotropic elastic solids. The difficulties in separating Lekhnitskii's two complex arguments involved in the integrals are overcome and explicit functional representations of the integrals are given for several typical cases. It is found that the pseudoorthogonal property of the eigenfunction expansion forms presented previously for isotropic cases, isotropic bimaterials, and orthotropic cases, are proved to be also valid in the present case of anisotropic material. Finally, Some useful path-independent integrals and weight functions are proposed. The project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (19891180) and Doctorate Foundation of Xi'an Jiaotong University     

Thermal stress intensity factors for an interface crack in a functionally graded layered structures

The fracture behavior of a functionally graded layered structure (FGLS) with an interface crack under thermal loading is investigated. Considering new boundary conditions, it is assumed that interface crack is partly insulated, and the temperature drop across the crack surfaces is the result of the thermal resistance due to the heat conduction through the crack region. The problem is formulated in terms of a system of singular integral equations. Numerical results are presented to show the influence of the material nonhomogeneity parameters and the dimensionless thermal resistance on the thermal stress intensity factors (TSIFs).     

Analysis of an interfacial crack in a piezoelectric bi-material via the extended Green’s functions and displacement discontinuity method

Based on the extended Stroh formalism, we first derive the extended Green’s functions for an extended dislocation and displacement discontinuity located at the interface of a piezoelectric bi-material. These include Green’s functions of the extended dislocation, displacement discontinuities within a finite interval and the concentrated displacement discontinuities, all on the interface. The Green’s functions are then applied to obtain the integro-differential equation governing the interfacial crack. To eliminate the oscillating singularities associated with the delta function in the Green’s functions, we represent the delta function in terms of the Gaussian distribution function. In so doing, the integro-differential equation is reduced to a standard integral equation for the interfacial crack problem in piezoelectric bi-material with the extended displacement discontinuities being the unknowns. A simple numerical approach is also proposed to solve the integral equation for the displacement discontinuities, along with the asymptotic expressions of the extended intensity factors and J-integral in terms of the discontinuities near the crack tip. In numerical examples, the effect of the Gaussian parameter on the numerical results is discussed, and the influence of different extended loadings on the interfacial crack behaviors is further investigated.     

Anti-plane fracture analysis for the weak-discontinuous interface in a non-homogeneous piezoelectric bi-material structure

The concept of weak discontinuity is extended to functionally graded piezoelectric bi-material interface, and fracture analysis for the weak discontinuous interface is performed by the methods of Fourier integral transform and Cauchy singular integral equation. Numerical results of the total energy release rate (TERR) and the mechanical strain energy release rate (MSERR) are obtained to show the effects of non-homogeneity parameters, geometrical parameters and loads. Parametric studies yield three conclusions: (1) To reduce the weak-discontinuity of the interface is beneficial to resisting interfacial fracture. The effect of the weak-discontinuity of the interface on TERR and MSERR still depends on the strip width. The wider the strip, the more sensitive the TERR and MSERR will be to the weak-discontinuity of the interface. (2) To predict the effect of electric load on crack propagation, MSERR is more appropriate than TERR to be used as a fracture parameter. To predict the effect of mechanical load on crack propagation, both of them could be used as fracture parameters, and MSERR is more conservative. (3) Mechanical load and negative electric displacement load would promote crack propagation, but positive electric displacement load would retard it. For the structure applied by combined mechanical and positive electric displacement loads, crack propagation may be impeded by appropriately selecting the strip width and the ratio of non-homogeneity parameters.