THE CONFLICTS BETWEEN STRENGTH AND TOUGHNESS

SUMMERY:

It is always remained the prime objective of Material Engineers to produce a good quality material. Strength (hardness) and toughness are the two basic properties of a good quality material. Strength represents the resistance of a material to failure given by applied loads. Whereas toughness represents the energy required cracking a produce cracks in a material or in other words one may Toughness is the resistance of material to fracture. Strength has usually inverse proportionality to toughness, increasing strength, decreasing toughness and vice versa). For example, Tempered steel is tougher but less strong than after quenching. Chart (1) shows yield strength in tension for all materials excluding for ceramics which compressive strength is shown (their tensile strength being much lower) Chart (1) shows that glass and ceramics have are less tough are stronger enough while rubber, wood and wood products are much tough but less stronger. Ceramics, glass, and other brittle materials can have large compressive strength but usually low tensile strength. Thats why if we compress the material, it shows much strength and does not break, but if tensile force is applied on the material failure occurs at low strength. The reason behind it is that microscopic surface cracks open up when the material is in tension, it cracked. On the other hand, in presence of compressive force, the crack gets closer. Metals are tough because they bend a lot prior to failure. Ceramics are strong but they are not much tough because they do not bend much before breaking. In other words, ductility of materials is also necessary in order to make them stronger enough against applied loads or

stresses. Ductility has also close relation with fracture. Ductility represents how a material deforms plastically before it goes to failure. But only ductility is not the only factor to make a material tough but a good combination of ductility and strength produce a good tough material. Toughness can also be measured by using the area under the stress-strain curve obtained in tensile strength testing. (Shown in fig. b) Toughness has different types, for example, Impact Toughness, Notch Toughness, and Fracture Toughness. Charpy graph shows the behavior of material under impact toughness. Fracture toughness represents an indication of stress needed to propagate a preexisting flaw. Diagram shown the failure of material under Fracture Toughness (shown in Fig. c). Notch toughness is the ability that a material possesses to absorb energy in the presence of a flaw (shown in Fig. d). Intrinsic toughening is essentially an inherent property of a specific microstructure; it is the dominant form of toughening in ductile (e.g., metallic) materials. However, for most brittle (for example ceramics), glass etc include much biological material, it is largely ineffective and toughening on the other hand should be developed extrinsically by shielding mechanisms such as crack bridging. In fracture mechanism process, this outcome in toughening in the form of growing resistance-curve behavior on the other hand the resistance in fracture actually increases with crack width. In many biological and high-strength materials, toughness is generated mainly during crack expansion and not for crack beginning. This is an significant insight yet is still not often reflected in the way that toughness is calculated that is regularly involved the utilization of single-value (crack-beginning) factor such as the fracture toughness KIc. As structural materials are frequently used in applications where catastrophic fracture is not an choice such as for aircraft jet engines, gas pipelines, nuclear containment vessels, even serious

medical implants like cardiovascular stents and heart valve prostheses, it can be usefully dispute that the property of toughness is far more important than strength. Accordingly, recognizing the necessary trade-offs in microstructures, one could expect that research on modern structural materials would be ever more tailored to attain an optimum combination of these two properties. Unfortunately this is seldom the case and much physics and materials-based research is still too focused on the quest for higher strength without any corresponding regard for toughness. Also a considerable exception here is in the ceramics materials, where the tremendous brittleness of ceramic materials has necessitated a particular emphasis on the issue of fracture resistance and toughness. In ductile materials such as polymers and metals, strength is a measure of the resistance to permanent or plastic deformation. It can define as invariably in compression, uni-axial tension, or bending either at first yield (i-e yield strength) or at maximum loads (ultimate strength). In case of metals and alloys is where the toughness is inversely proportional to the strength. For example, in certain aluminum alloys Al-Li alloys etc, those are considerably tougher at liquid helium temperatures (where they in nature show the higher strength). The results from their trend at low temperatures to make delaminating cracks in the through thickness (short-transverse) direction; the toughness is elevated by delaminating toughening in the longitudinal (crack-divider) orientation where as the material efficiently splits in many higher toughness, planer-stress sections & by crack arrest at the delaminating cracks in the transverse (crack arrester) orientation. In brittle materials such as ceramics in which at low homologous temperatures, macroscopic plastic deformation is essentially absent. Strength is measured in bending or uni-axial tension is governed by when a sample fractures. Strength, however, does not essentially provide a sound judgment of toughness as it cannot define the relative input of flaws & defects from which fracture invariably ensues. Due to this reason, toughness and

strength can also be inversely related in ceramics. For example, refinement the grain size can limit the range of pre-existing micro cracks that is beneficial for strength but fracture mechanics is based toughness measurements in which the test samples have a worst-case crack already, the smaller grain size give less resistance to crack propagation, also generally by decreasing the potency of any grain bridging that lowers the toughness. In materials, Flaws are either micro-structural in origin, e.g., micro cracks or micro voids created at brittle second-phase particles, grain boundary films and inclusions or occure during handing, synthesis and processing such as cavities grinding, quench cracks, porosity, shrinkage and stamping marks seams & weld-related cracks. Their importance and statistical consequence was first described in several centuries ago by Leonardo da Vinci. He calculated the strength of brittle iron wires and found that the fracture strength was not a stable like the yield strength but quite varied inversely with wire length entail that flaws in the material prohibited the strength. A longer wire results in a larger sampling volume and gives a higher possibility of finding a significant flaw. The dependence of strength on the pre-existing flaw distributions has a number of important implications for brittle materials. One should be kept in mind that a material should be designed in such a way that it could be strong and tough enough so that it would have well capability of bearing stresses without failure.

References: 1. S. Timoshinko and J. N . Goodair (2005). Theory of Elasticity. New York,USA: McGraw-Hills. 1-27. 2. Gilbert, C. J. et al. Crack-growth resistance-curve behavior in silicon carbide:Small versus long cracks J. Am. Ceram. Soc. 80, 22532261 (1997). 3. Clarke, D. R. & Thomas, G. Microstructures of Y2O3 fluxed hot-pressed silicon nitride. J. Am. Ceram. Soc. 60, 491495 (1978). 4. Materilalia; Vol. 54, Issue: 3; Feb. 2006; pp. 337-341. 5. Meyers, M. A. et al. Mechanical strength of abalone nacre: Role of the soft organic layer. J. Mech. Behav. Biomed. Mater. 1, 7685 (2008). 6. Weiner S. & Wagner H. D. The material bone: Structural-mechanical functional relations. Ann. Rev. Mater. Sci. 28, 271298 (1998). 7. I. Lewandowski JJ , M. Shazly, A. Shamimi Nouri; Scripta 8. II. Lewandowski JJ, Wang W.H., Greer A.L.; Philosophical Magazine Letters; Vol. 85, No. 2; Feb. 2005; pp. 77-87. 9. Lowhaphandu P, Lewandowski JJ; Scripta 10. Materilalia; Vol. 38, Issue: 12; May 1998; pp. 1811-1817. 11. Launey, M. E., Buehler, M. J. & Ritchie R. O. On the mechanistic origins of toughness in bone. Ann. Rev. Mater. Res. 40, 2553 (2010). 12. Bailey, A. J. Molecular mechanisms of ageing in connective tissues. Mech. Ageing Dev. 122, 735755 (2001). Nalla, R. K., Kinney, J. H. & Ritchie, R. O. Mechanisti

Appendix:

Chart-1 Strength-Toughness Diagram

Fig. (b) Stress-Strain Diagram

Charpy Graph

Fig. (c) Fracture Toughness

Fig. (d) Temperature-Fracture State Diagram

1. c

Crack Propagation Mechanism