Introduction and overview

Structures or components fail in various modes:

Fracture Focus of this course
Fatigue
Particularly dangerous
Plastic deformation
due to sudden nature of
Wear failure
Corrosion
 Historical Perspective
Before 19th century, primary building materials were brick and mortar.
Relatively brittle, unreliable for carrying tensile loads.
Schematic Roman Bridge
Image source: T. L. Anderson
Kings college chapel, Cambridge, UK
Structure was built in 1515
The arch shape maintains a compressive loading
 Historical Perspective
Industrial revolution came with mass production of iron
and steel
Availability of ductile construction materials removed
earlier constraints on design
It was feasible to design structures that carried tensile
stresses.
However, a steel structure would fail at stresses well
below the anticipated tensile strength.
Example: Rupture of a molasses tank in Boston, 1919
2 million gallons of molasses were spilled, 12 deaths, 40
injuries, considerable property damage, several drowned
horses.
The cause of rupture was a mystery at the time
 Introduction and overview
Examples:
Liberty Ships, WWII
Had an all-welded hull as opposed to
riveted construction of traditional ship
designs
1943: one of the vessels split in half,
subsequent fracture occurred in other
Liberty ships
Out of 2700 ships, 400 sustained
fracture 90 were considered serious.
Image Source: britishblades.com
In 20 ships the failure was total and about half of these broke
completely in two.
 Introduction and overview
Examples:
Liberty Ships, WWII
Investigations revealed a
combination of three factors as the
cause of failure:
The welds contained crack flaws
Most of the cracks initiated on
the deck at square hatch
corners (stress concentration)
The steel used in building the Image Source: britishblades.com
ships had poor toughness
 Introduction and overview
Examples:
British De Havilland Comet, the worlds first commercial jet airliner
1954: Two Comets
disintegrated in flight killing
dozens
Metal fatigue: A crack
developed near the window
in the front of the cabin roof.
The crack developed into the
window creating a very large
crack that lead to the crash.
Image source: century-of-flight.net
 Introduction and overview
Goal: To predict (and prevent) failure in
engineering components
Fracture Mechanisms Plasticity Testing Applications
Airplanes
cars
10-8 10-4 10-2 100 102
Materials Science Engineering
Applied Mechanics
Fracture Mechanics
 Introduction and overview
Failure Mechanism may depend on:
Materials and their microstructure
Loading rate
Temperature
Environment
 Introduction and overview
Questions:
1. Given a structure component with a preexisting crack or
crack-like flaw what loads can the structure take as a
function of the crack size, configuration and time?
2. Given a load and environmental history how fast and in what
directions will a crack grow in a structure?
3. At what time or number of cycles of loading will the crack
propagate catastrophically?
4. What size crack can be allowed to exist in component and
still operate it safely?
 Introduction and overview
Fracture vs. yield stress approach to design
Q: What is the maximum allowable load P?
P
h
L b
(Assume no safety factor)
Yield stress
 Introduction and overview
Fracture vs. yield stress approach to design
Q: What is the maximum allowable load P?
P
a h
L b
For a sharp crack K Zero allowable load, i.e no load
Therefore P 0 carrying capability!
But real, working structures all have cracks.
Knowledge of fracture mechanics is required to resolve this
apparent paradox.
 Introduction and overview
The strength of materials approach to design
Applied Stress Yield strength
The fracture mechanics approach to design
Applied Stress
Flaw size Fracture toughness
Fracture mechanics quantifies the critical
combination of these three variables
Effect of Material Properties on
Fracture Elastic behavior,
Quasi-static loading
Linear-elastic Fracture Time-independent
Mechanics Fracture mechanics
Non-linear
Elastic-Plastic Fracture Time-independent
Mechanics Fracture mechanics
Dynamic Fracture Visco-Plastic Fracture Visco-Elastic Fracture
Mechanics Mechanics Mechanics
Include time as a variable
 Material Typical fracture behavior
High strength steel
Austenite stainless steel
Metals at high T
Polymers below Tg*
Polymers above Tg
Ceramics/ceramic
composites
Tg*: Glass Transition temperature
 Linear Elastic Fracture Mechanics
(LEFM)
Main assumptions:
Material obeys Hooks law
Small-scale plasticity at the crack tip may be considered, but the overall
behavior is linear elastic.
Dynamic fracture and nonlinear fracture mechanics are extensions of LEFM.
It is essential to have a solid understanding of LEFM