ENGG409 Structural Integrity

Linear Elastic Fracture Mechanics

Dr Will Christian
[Link]@[Link]
Harrison Hughes, Room 110
 Last Week

• Looked at major non-destructive evaluation

techniques:
• Visual inspection
• Ultrasound
• Eddy Current
• Radiography
• Selecting Inspections

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 This Week

Some general points about NDE

Fracture Mechanics:
• Linear Elastic Fracture Mechanics (LEFM)
• Predicting fracture loads
• Small-scale plasticity in LEFM

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 Designing Inspections
• Designing an inspection is not a simple task
What size, shape
• Consideration should be given to: orientation?

1. What defects might occur Can you gain access? Is part

2. Where they may occur geometry complicated?

3. Where the test will be performed Is system portable?

Safety concerns?
4. Required frequency of testing
Speed of development?
5. Accuracy and sensitivity of system
Severity of failure?
6. Technician training
7. Equipment cost Is additional staff
required? Training?

• There is no single technique that will work in all situations

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 Comparing Techniques
Designing out Inspection

Visual Inspection
Dye
Penetrant Should always
Magnetic check if possible
Particle
Eddy Current

Increasing Cost

Increasing Cost
Ultrasound
TOFD Boundaries are
Phased Array Ultrasound
Ultrasound very blurred.
Gives a general
Gamma-Ray X-Ray indication of cost

Computed
Tomography

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 Comparing Techniques: Sensitivity

Visual Inspection
Magnetic Dye
Particle Penetrant

Increasing Sensitivity

Increasing Sensitivity
Conventional Eddy Current Boundaries are very
Ultrasound blurred.
Phased Array
Depends on application
Ultrasound
X-Ray and technician
Gamma-Ray C-Scan
Ultrasound
TOFD
Ultrasound Computed
Tomography

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 Comparing Techniques: Portability
Computed
Tomography
Ultrasound
C-scan
Boundaries are very blurred.

X-Ray e.g. Some ultrasound C-scan

Increasing Portability

Increasing Portability
Magnetic
machines are portable
Particle
TOFD
Ultrasound

Gamma-Ray
Conventional
Ultrasound
Eddy Current
Phased Array
Ultrasound
Dye
Visual Inspection Penetrant

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 NDE Mistakes
• Defect in US nuclear plant recirculation riser

• Noisy indication of defect in 1999 and 2005 scans, poor

procedure lead to missed defect

• Only found in 2007 when correct procedures applied

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 Ethical Concerns: Inspection Time
• Organizations don’t want to perform expensive
inspections. Example from US nuclear industry:

• Senior operator in US plant identified reactor head needed cleaning

and inspecting

• Management provided insufficient time to clean and inspect

• Operator recorded job complete anyway

• Management placed blame on operator when major defect found 2

years later

• Management shouldn’t rush safety

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 Ethical Concerns: Outage
• Organizations don’t want equipment out of action. Experience of
Ex-RAF ultrasound technician:

• Technician found minor but reportable defect in aircraft

• Officer requested it not be recorded for 24-hours as: aircraft was needed and defect was probably
insignificant

• Technician recorded it anyway

• Organisations need to provide climate for people to do the right thing

• In RAF, technicians need years of work doing other tasks before training to do
NDE
• So that they have confidence to say “No” to authority when it is necessary

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 After Damage is Found

• Once damage has been found an assessment of its severity

must be made.

• Last week the focus was on detecting cracks as these are major
concern for industry

• Fracture mechanics is used to assess cracks and predict when

fracture will occur

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 What is Fracture

• Separation of material into pieces in response to a static stress

Two different types:

• Brittle Fracture
• Little or no plastic deformation
• Sudden, catastrophic

• Ductile Fracture
• Accompanied by significant plastic deformation

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 Fracture Surfaces

• Fracture surfaces have distinctive appearances

• Often exhibit V-shaped “chevron” markings pointing to the

origin of the failure

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 Stress Concentrations

• Transmission of force in a bar can

be considered as lines which must
find their way from end to end.

• A uniform bar has uniform

distribution of stress

• Force lines going around a hole

bunch at its edge, resulting in a
concentration of stress

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 Visualising Stress Concentrations
Digital Image Correlation Thermoelastic Stress Analysis
Measuring deformation using Measuring stress by monitoring
optical cameras minute temperature fluctuations

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 Stress Concentration Factors

Gross Stress First principal stress near circular hole

Stress, Concentration 600
𝜎𝑔 Factor,
𝜎𝑚𝑎𝑥 500
𝑘=
𝜎𝑔 400

Stress, MPa
Max 300
Stress, 200
𝜎𝑚𝑎𝑥
For a circular hole in an 100
infinitely wide plate,
0
𝑘𝑐𝑖𝑟𝑐 = 3 0 10 20 30 40 50
Distance from hole centre, mm

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 More Stress Concentrations
Stress Concentration Factor (SCF) for an ellipse
SCFs have been calculated for almost any
conceivable shape

2𝑎
𝑎
2𝑏 𝑘𝑒𝑙𝑖𝑝 =1+2
𝑏

SCF of U-shaped groove in rod from:

Pilkey & Pilkey (2007) Stress Concentration Factors
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 Stress at Crack Tip

• Cracks can be thought of as very narrow ellipses

2𝑎
• As 𝑏 → 0, 𝑘𝑒𝑙𝑖𝑝 → ∞
2𝑏

• This suggests that the stress at a crack tip in a purely

elastic material is infinite

𝑎 • This doesn’t help us to determine the severity of a

𝑘𝑒𝑙𝑖𝑝 =1+2
𝑏 crack

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 AA Griffith

• Former student of this department, graduated in 1915

• Studied why materials tend to fail at lower loads than

expected

• Developed a mathematical explanation based on energy at

crack tips

• His work was built on by G R Irwin in 1950s

Also developed first turboprop But, rubbished Frank Whittle’s

engine ideas of the jet engine

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 Stress Around Cracks
Experimentally Measured
Stress Field
• Exact solutions for stress around crack tips were
developed in 1920s and 1930s

• Developed by Westergaard and generalised by

Muskhelishvili Stress Muskhelishvili
Field

• Westergaard’s equations form the basis of linear elastic

fracture mechanics

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 Westergaard Equations

𝜎𝑔 Crack in infinite elastic material can be modelled using

Airy stress functions:

𝑦 𝜎𝑔 −𝜎𝑔 𝑎2
𝑍 𝑧 = 𝑍′ 𝑧 = 3ൗ
𝑧 = 𝑥 + 𝑖𝑦 𝑎 2 2 2
1− 𝑧 𝑎
𝑧3 1− 𝑧

𝑥
2𝑎 Can be used to analytically derive stress around crack:

𝜎𝑥𝑥 = 𝑅𝑒 𝑍(𝑧) − 𝑦 ∙ 𝐼𝑚 𝑍′(𝑧)

𝜎𝑦𝑦 = 𝑅𝑒 𝑍(𝑧) + 𝑦 ∙ 𝐼𝑚 𝑍′(𝑧)

𝜎𝑔
𝜏𝑥𝑦 = −𝑦 ∙ 𝑅𝑒 𝑍′(𝑧)

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 Stress Near Cracks

𝜎𝑔

• In 1957 Irwin developed simple expressions for stress

𝑟 close to the crack tip.
2𝑎
𝜃
• Coordinate system was moved to crack tip

• Stress functions simplified so that accurate only near

the crack tip
𝜎𝑔

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 Irwin’s Stress Functions

𝜎𝑔 • This led to the simplified equations:

𝑟 𝜎𝑔 𝜋𝑎 𝜃 𝜃 3𝜃
𝜎𝑦𝑦 = cos 1 + sin sin
2𝑎 2𝜋𝑟 2 2 2
𝜃
𝜎𝑔 𝜋𝑎 𝜃 𝜃 3𝜃
𝜎𝑥𝑥 = cos 1 − sin sin
2𝜋𝑟 2 2 2

𝜎𝑔 𝜋𝑎 𝜃 𝜃 3𝜃
𝜎𝑔 𝜏𝑥𝑦 = cos sin cos
2𝜋𝑟 2 2 2

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 Stress Intensity Factor

Rate at which stress

increases toward infinity, SIF:
𝜎𝑦𝑦
𝜎𝑔
Normalised Stress,

𝐾 = 𝜎𝑔 𝜋𝑎

𝜎𝑔 𝜋𝑎 𝜃 𝜃 3𝜃
𝜎𝑦𝑦 = cos 1 + sin sin
2𝜋𝑟 2 2 2

Distance from crack centre

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 Fracture Modes

Mode 1, 𝑲𝑰 Mode 2, 𝑲𝑰𝑰 Mode 3, 𝑲𝑰𝑰𝑰

Shearing mode Tearing mode

Opening mode
Impossible to have Less Common
Most common mode
pure Mode 2 fracture

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 SIFs for Different Geometries

• 𝐾 = 𝜎𝑔 𝜋𝑎 only works for crack in center of infinitely

wide plate
2𝑎
• For different geometries a geometry factor is required, 𝛽.
𝐾 = 𝜎𝑔 𝜋𝑎 𝛽

• This factor is a function of the crack size and specimen

dimensions

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 Examples of SIFs

𝑎
ℎ
𝑊 𝑎

2𝑅

𝑎
𝐾 = 𝜎𝑔 𝜋𝑎𝛽
𝑊
𝑎 𝑎 𝑎 2
𝛽 = 1.12 − 0.213 + 10.55 − 𝑎
𝑊 𝑊 𝑊 𝐾 = 𝜎𝑔 𝜋𝑎𝛽
𝑎 3 𝑎 4 𝑊
21.73 + 30.39
𝑊 𝑊
𝑎 0.8733
𝛽 = + 0.6762
Conditions:
𝑎
≤ 0.6 and
ℎ
≥ 1.0 𝑊 0.3245 + 𝑎ൗ𝑅
𝑊 𝑊

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 Crack Length

𝑎 • Cracks growing from an edge are

length, 𝑎

2𝑎

• Cracks growing in the middle of a

plate are length, 2𝑎

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 Superpositions of SIFs
• For linear elastic systems, individual components of stress, strain,
displacement are additive.

• SIFs can also be added, as long as the mode of loading is consistent.

𝑃 𝑀𝑦
𝜎𝑥𝑥 = +
𝐴 𝐼

𝐾𝑡𝑜𝑡𝑎𝑙 = 𝐾𝑡𝑒𝑛𝑠 + 𝐾𝑏𝑒𝑛𝑑

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 Using SIFs to Predict Failure

• Critical SIF values, 𝐾𝑐 , exist. This value is the materials Fracture

Toughness

• If exceeded then crack will propagate leading to fracture

𝐾𝐼 ≥ 𝐾𝑐

Stress Intensity Factor Fracture Toughness

Depends on load and geometry Depends on material, temperature,
environment and load rate

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 Determining Critical Crack Length
𝑎
• Failure occurs when, 𝐾𝐼 = 𝜎𝑔 𝜋𝑎𝛽 = 𝐾𝑐
𝑊

• Difficult to rearrange for 𝑎 so rearrange for 𝜎𝑔 and solve numerically

𝑎 −1
𝜎𝑔 𝜎𝑔 = 𝐾𝑐 𝜋𝑎𝛽
𝑊

• NDE must be able to

Critical crack
Operating locate cracks of this size
length
stress

𝑎
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 Measuring Fracture Toughness

• Sharp notch acts as crack.

• Peak load measured, at which point

specimen fails

• Fracture toughness calculated from

geometry and peak load

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 Estimating Fracture Toughness
Charpy Specimen
(Charpy)

Energy required to fracture

specimen is used as measure
of toughness

final height initial height Various equations can be used

to convert energy to 𝐾𝐼𝑐

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 Fracture Toughness of Materials
• Fracture toughness has the units, 𝑀𝑃𝑎 𝑚

• Affected by environmental conditions, particularly temperature

• Under standard conditions it is a common material property found in databases

Material Yield Strength (𝑀𝑃𝑎) Fracture Toughness (𝑀𝑃𝑎 𝑚)

Aluminium (7075-T651) 495 24
Aluminium (2024-T3) 345 44
Steel (4340T) 1640 50
Concrete - 0.2-1.4
Acrylic (PMMA) 53.8-73.1 0.7-1.6

Fracture toughness can be found in CES

34, break
 Fracture Toughness and Temperature
Charpy Toughness

Ductile

Brittle Ductile to Brittle

Transform
WW2 Liberty Tanker
Made from steel that had DBTT at room temperature
Temperature

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 Brittle and Ductile Fracture

• Ductile Failure, has extensive plastic deformation in

the vicinity of the advancing crack.
• Process is relatively slow (stable).
• Crack resists further extension unless there is an
increase in load

• Brittle Failure, cracks spread rapidly, with little

deformation.
• These cracks are unstable
• Crack propagation will continue without an increased
load

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 Crack Tip Plasticity

• Linear elastic fracture mechanics

(LEFM) only valid when plastic
deformation confined to small
region at crack tip.
Plastic
Zone • Crack tip plasticity causes fracture
at lower loads

• LEFM can still be used when

moderate plasticity occurs using a
simple correction

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 Irwin Crack Tip Plasticity

𝜎𝑦𝑦 • Irwin assumed plasticity was confined to circular region

at crack tip
𝜎𝑌𝑆
• Within region, stress is equal to yield stress:
𝑟𝑝
𝐾𝐼
𝑟 𝜎𝑌𝑆 = , rearranged results in:
2𝜋𝑟𝑝

1 𝐾𝐼 2
Plastic Zone 𝑟𝑝 =
2𝜋 𝜎𝑌𝑆

• Used to form an effective crack length:

𝑎𝑒𝑓𝑓 = 𝑎 + 𝑟𝑝

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 Using Irwin Plasticity

𝑎𝑒𝑓𝑓 is then used to recalculate the SIF

𝑎𝑒𝑓𝑓
𝐾𝐼 ∗ = 𝜎 𝜋𝑎𝑒𝑓𝑓 𝛽

𝐾𝐼 ∗ > 𝐾𝐼 so it is necessary to iteratively recalculate

𝑎
𝑎𝑒𝑓𝑓 using the last estimated 𝐾𝐼 ∗ until a stable value
Plastic Zone is obtained

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 When to Use Irwin Plasticity
Use technique when, 𝑎 ≥ 10𝑟𝑝

This occurs when: Work hardening

• 𝐾𝐼 is small

Stress
Elastic-perfectly plastic
• Yield stress, 𝜎𝑌𝑆 , is large
• Crack length, 𝑎, is large Strain

Also, the material must exhibit work hardening

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 Dugdale Strip Plasticity
Assumes strip of plastically deformed material causes compressive
residual strength on crack tip, leads to: 𝑎𝑒𝑓𝑓 = 𝑎 + 𝑐0

𝑎 𝑐0

= +
A B C

Using principal of
superposition:
𝐾𝐴 = 𝐾𝐵 + 𝐾𝐶 = 0 ⇒ 𝐾𝐵 = 𝐾𝐼 ∗ = −𝐾𝐶

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 Estimating Strip Length

𝑐0 • The stress intensity factor for a crack containing

localised pressure can be calculated:

∗ 2
𝐾𝐼 = 𝐾𝐵 = −𝐾𝐶 = 2 𝜎𝑌𝑆 𝑐0
C 𝜋
Rearranged for 𝑐0
2
𝜋 𝐾𝐼
𝑐0 =
8 𝜎𝑌𝑆
𝑎𝑒𝑓𝑓 = 𝑎 + 𝑐0

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 Beyond Linear Elastic Fracture Mechanics

• If the plastic zone is large relative to the crack size then other
techniques are needed

• These techniques aren’t as well known as SIFs but are already

seen in industry

• J-Integral

• Crack tip opening displacement

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 Estimating Plastic Zone Shapes

• Westergaard developed equations for the exact stress

distribution at a crack tip

• Combined with Von-Mises yield criterion, the 2D plastic zone

shape can be estimated

2 2 2
2𝜎𝑌𝑆 = 𝜎𝑥𝑥 − 𝜎𝑦𝑦 + 𝜎𝑥𝑥 − 𝜎𝑧𝑧 +
2
𝜎𝑦𝑦 − 𝜎𝑧𝑧 + 6 𝜎𝑥𝑦 2 + 𝜎𝑥𝑧 2 + 𝜎𝑦𝑧 2

• Stresses in thickness direction important

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 Plane Strain and Stress

• Plane Stress, no stress in z-direction, there is strain

• Occurs in thin plates
• 𝜎𝑧𝑧 = 0

• Plane Strain, there is stress in z-direction, but no

strain
• Occurs in thick plates
• 𝜎𝑧𝑧 = 𝜈 𝜎𝑥𝑥 + 𝜎𝑦𝑦

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 Plastic Zone Shapes
• Thicker components will
fracture in a more brittle
manner
Plain Strain
Plastic Zone • Thick components still have
plane stress conditions at
surfaces
• Leads to “dumbbell” plastic
zone shape

Plain Stress
Plastic Zone

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 Thickness and Fracture Toughness
• Fracture toughness decreases
𝐵 with thickness

• Reaches minimum at plane

strain condition called, the
Fracture Toughness, 𝑲𝒄

plane strain fracture

toughness, 𝐾𝐼𝑐

𝐾𝐼𝑐
• 𝐾𝑐 at different thicknesses
can be estimated using(1):
4
1.4 𝐾𝐼𝑐
𝐾𝑐 = 𝐾𝐼𝑐 1+ 2
Thickness, 𝑩 𝐵 𝜎𝑌𝑆

(1) WD Pilkey, Formulas for Stress, Strain and Structural Matrices. 1994

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 Recap

✓ Stress Intensity Factor (SIF) can be used to predict fracture for elastic
materials

✓ Fracture toughness is a material property

✓ Different methods must be used when plasticity occurs

• Irwin or Dugdale plastic zones

Next Week:
• Fatigue and creep, and setting the report

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