Fracture is the separation of an object or material into two or more pieces under the action of stress. The fracture of a solid usually occurs due to the development of certain displacement discontinuity surfaces within the solid. If a displacement develops perpendicular to the surface, it is called a normal tensile crack or simply a crack; if a displacement develops tangentially, it is called a shear crack, slip band or dislocation.
The field of strength of materials, also called mechanics of materials, typically refers to various methods of calculating the stresses and strains in structural members, such as beams, columns, and shafts. The methods employed to predict the response of a structure under loading and its susceptibility to various failure modes takes into account the properties of the materials such as its yield strength, ultimate strength, Young's modulus, and Poisson's ratio. In addition, the mechanical element's macroscopic properties such as its length, width, thickness, boundary constraints and abrupt changes in geometry such as holes are considered.
In materials science, fatigue is the initiation and propagation of cracks in a material due to cyclic loading. Once a fatigue crack has initiated, it grows a small amount with each loading cycle, typically producing striations on some parts of the fracture surface. The crack will continue to grow until it reaches a critical size, which occurs when the stress intensity factor of the crack exceeds the fracture toughness of the material, producing rapid propagation and typically complete fracture of the structure.
Fracture mechanics is the field of mechanics concerned with the study of the propagation of cracks in materials. It uses methods of analytical solid mechanics to calculate the driving force on a crack and those of experimental solid mechanics to characterize the material's resistance to fracture.
Stress corrosion cracking (SCC) is the growth of crack formation in a corrosive environment. It can lead to unexpected and sudden failure of normally ductile metal alloys subjected to a tensile stress, especially at elevated temperature. SCC is highly chemically specific in that certain alloys are likely to undergo SCC only when exposed to a small number of chemical environments. The chemical environment that causes SCC for a given alloy is often one which is only mildly corrosive to the metal. Hence, metal parts with severe SCC can appear bright and shiny, while being filled with microscopic cracks. This factor makes it common for SCC to go undetected prior to failure. SCC often progresses rapidly, and is more common among alloys than pure metals. The specific environment is of crucial importance, and only very small concentrations of certain highly active chemicals are needed to produce catastrophic cracking, often leading to devastating and unexpected failure.
In materials science, fracture toughness is the critical stress intensity factor of a sharp crack where propagation of the crack suddenly becomes rapid and unlimited. A component's thickness affects the constraint conditions at the tip of a crack with thin components having plane stress conditions and thick components having plane strain conditions. Plane strain conditions give the lowest fracture toughness value which is a material property. The critical value of stress intensity factor in mode I loading measured under plane strain conditions is known as the plane strain fracture toughness, denoted . When a test fails to meet the thickness and other test requirements that are in place to ensure plane strain conditions, the fracture toughness value produced is given the designation . Fracture toughness is a quantitative way of expressing a material's resistance to crack propagation and standard values for a given material are generally available.
In materials science, environmental stress fracture or environment assisted fracture is the generic name given to premature failure under the influence of tensile stresses and harmful environments of materials such as metals and alloys, composites, plastics and ceramics.
Embrittlement is a significant decrease of ductility of a material, which makes the material brittle. Embrittlement is used to describe any phenomena where the environment compromises a stressed material's mechanical performance, such as temperature or environmental composition. This is oftentimes undesirable as brittle fracture occurs quicker and can much more easily propagate than ductile fracture, leading to complete failure of the equipment. Various materials have different mechanisms of embrittlement, therefore it can manifest in a variety of ways, from slow crack growth to a reduction of tensile ductility and toughness.
Paris' law is a crack growth equation that gives the rate of growth of a fatigue crack. The stress intensity factor characterises the load around a crack tip and the rate of crack growth is experimentally shown to be a function of the range of stress intensity seen in a loading cycle. The Paris equation is
A fracture is any separation in a geologic formation, such as a joint or a fault that divides the rock into two or more pieces. A fracture will sometimes form a deep fissure or crevice in the rock. Fractures are commonly caused by stress exceeding the rock strength, causing the rock to lose cohesion along its weakest plane. Fractures can provide permeability for fluid movement, such as water or hydrocarbons. Highly fractured rocks can make good aquifers or hydrocarbon reservoirs, since they may possess both significant permeability and fracture porosity.
AFGROW is a Damage Tolerance Analysis (DTA) computer program that calculates crack initiation, fatigue crack growth, and fracture to predict the life of metallic structures. Originally developed by the Air Force Research Laboratory, AFGROW is mainly used for aerospace applications, but can be applied to any type of metallic structure that experiences fatigue cracking.
Environmental Stress Cracking (ESC) is one of the most common causes of unexpected brittle failure of thermoplastic polymers known at present. According to ASTM D883, stress cracking is defined as "an external or internal crack in a plastic caused by tensile stresses less than its short-term mechanical strength". This type of cracking typically involves brittle cracking, with little or no ductile drawing of the material from its adjacent failure surfaces. Environmental stress cracking may account for around 15-30% of all plastic component failures in service. This behavior is especially prevalent in glassy, amorphous thermoplastics. Amorphous polymers exhibit ESC because of their loose structure which makes it easier for the fluid to permeate into the polymer. Amorphous polymers are more prone to ESC at temperature higher than their glass transition temperature (Tg) due to the increased free volume. When Tg is approached, more fluid can permeate into the polymer chains.
Material failure theory is an interdisciplinary field of materials science and solid mechanics which attempts to predict the conditions under which solid materials fail under the action of external loads. The failure of a material is usually classified into brittle failure (fracture) or ductile failure (yield). Depending on the conditions most materials can fail in a brittle or ductile manner or both. However, for most practical situations, a material may be classified as either brittle or ductile.
Slow strain rate testing (SSRT), also called constant extension rate tensile testing (CERT), is a popular test used by research scientists to study stress corrosion cracking. It involves a slow dynamic strain applied at a constant extension rate in the environment of interest. These test results are compared to those for similar tests in a, known to be inert, environment. A 50-year history of the SSRT has recently been published by its creator. The test has also been standardized and two ASTM symposia devoted to it.
Polymer fracture is the study of the fracture surface of an already failed material to determine the method of crack formation and extension in polymers both fiber reinforced and otherwise. Failure in polymer components can occur at relatively low stress levels, far below the tensile strength because of four major reasons: long term stress or creep rupture, cyclic stresses or fatigue, the presence of structural flaws and stress-cracking agents. Formations of submicroscopic cracks in polymers under load have been studied by x ray scattering techniques and the main regularities of crack formation under different loading conditions have been analyzed. The low strength of polymers compared to theoretically predicted values are mainly due to the many microscopic imperfections found in the material. These defects namely dislocations, crystalline boundaries, amorphous interlayers and block structure can all lead to the non-uniform distribution of mechanical stress.
Crack closure is a phenomenon in fatigue loading, where the opposing faces of a crack remain in contact even with an external load acting on the material. As the load is increased, a critical value will be reached at which time the crack becomes open. Crack closure occurs from the presence of material propping open the crack faces and can arise from many sources including plastic deformation or phase transformation during crack propagation, corrosion of crack surfaces, presence of fluids in the crack, or roughness at cracked surfaces.
Fracture of biological materials may occur in biological tissues making up the musculoskeletal system, commonly called orthopedic tissues: bone, cartilage, ligaments, and tendons. Bone and cartilage, as load-bearing biological materials, are of interest to both a medical and academic setting for their propensity to fracture. For example, a large health concern is in preventing bone fractures in an aging population, especially since fracture risk increases ten fold with aging. Cartilage damage and fracture can contribute to osteoarthritis, a joint disease that results in joint stiffness and reduced range of motion.
Striations are marks produced on the fracture surface that show the incremental growth of a fatigue crack. A striation marks the position of the crack tip at the time it was made. The term striation generally refers to ductile striations which are rounded bands on the fracture surface separated by depressions or fissures and can have the same appearance on both sides of the mating surfaces of the fatigue crack. Although some research has suggested that many loading cycles are required to form a single striation, it is now generally thought that each striation is the result of a single loading cycle.
A crack growth equation is used for calculating the size of a fatigue crack growing from cyclic loads. The growth of fatigue cracks can result in catastrophic failure, particularly in the case of aircraft. A crack growth equation can be used to ensure safety, both in the design phase and during operation, by predicting the size of cracks. In critical structure, loads can be recorded and used to predict the size of cracks to ensure maintenance or retirement occurs prior to any of the cracks failing.
Fastran is a computer program for calculating the rate of fatigue crack growth by combining crack growth equations and a simulation of the plasticity at the crack tip.
