Revision and

Assignment II
Introduction to linear elastic fracture mechanics (LEFM).
• State of stress near a crack tip.
• The stress intensity factor and fracture toughness
• Factor of safety for fracture

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Problem
• A center-cracked plate of AISI 1144 steel ( ) has dimensions b = 40 mm, t = 15 mm and h = 20 mm.
For a factor of safety of three against crack growth, what is the maximum
permissible load on the plate if the crack half-length a is: (a) 10 mm, and (b) 24 mm?

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Problem
• A rectangular beam made of ABS plastic ( ) has dimensions b = 20 mm deep and t = 10 mm thick.
Loads on the beam cause a bending moment of 10 N.m. What is the largest through thickness edge
crack that can be permitted if a factor of safety of 2.5 against fracture is required?

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• Problem 5
A 50 mm diameter shaft has a circumferential surface crack as shown
below, with crack depth a = 5 mm. The shaft is made of 18-Ni maraging
steel ( ).
(a) If the shaft is loaded with a bending moment of 1.5 kN.m, what is the
factor of safety against crack propagation?
(b) If an axial tensile load of 120 kN is combined with the above bending
moment, what is the factor of safety now?

Note: The stress intensity factor for a case of “combined” loading is found
by simply summing the stress intensity factors found by considering each
loading case separately. This “superposition” works because we are
combining linear elastic solution

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• Problem 6
Two plates of A533B-1 steel are placed together and then welded from one
side, with the weld penetrating halfway, as shown. A uniform tension stress is
applied during service. Determine the strength of this joint, as a percentage of
its strength if the joint were solid, as limited by (i) fracture, taking into account
plasticity at the crack tip, and (ii) fully plastic yielding, for:
(a) A service temperature of -750C when the properties are: ,
•
(b) A service temperature of 2000C when the properties are: ,

(c) Comment on the suitability of this steel for use at these temperatures.

Notes:
1. Fracture toughness generally increases with temperature while yield strength
diminishes.
2. Assume the weld metal has the same properties as the plates.

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What is Fracture Mechanics?

• Structures will frequently have sizeable

existing cracks which might or might
not grow, depending on the load level
• To predict failure by crack growth we
need a “crack meter,” which is
provided by fracture mechanics

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• Drill hole at crack tip – reduces stress concentration
and arrests crack growth (e.g. skin of airplane wing)
• Linear elastic fracture mechanics (LEFM) analyzes the
gross elastic changes in a component that occur as a
sharp crack grows and compares this to the energy
required to produce new fracture surfaces.
• Using this approach, it is possible to calculate the
average stress which will cause growth of an existing
crack.

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 Fracture Conditions
• There exist three possible fracture modes, as shown
• Mode I is most important (will not consider the
others here)
• Stress State Near the Crack Tip
• For Mode I fracture, the stress components at the
crack tip

A crack generates its own stress field, which differs from

any other crack tip stress field only by the scaling factor K,
which we call the stress intensity factor.
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 State of Stress Near a Crack Tip
• Consider a crack in a plate as shown:
• If ,
• elastic analysis shows that the conditions for crack growth are
controlled by the magnitude of the elastic stress intensity factor
where

• If the plate has finite dimensions relative to the crack length a, then
the value of must be modified:

Where is the stress intensity modification factor and depends on the

geometry of the component and crack.

- Is the base value of the stress intensity factor (SIF)

- Is the true stress intensity factor (SIF)

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State of Stress Near a Crack Tip
• The units of the stress intensity factor are, for example, or etc.
• Values of have been determined from the theory of elasticity for many cases of practical
importance and some representative cases are plotted in the next few pages (taken from
“Mechanical Engineering Design,” by Shigley and Mischke).

• Figures 5–25 to 5–30 present a few examples of β for mode I crack propagation.

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Figure 5–25 Off-center crack in a plate in longitudinal tension; Figure 5–26 Plate loaded in longitudinal tension with a crack at t
solid curves are for the crack tip at A; dashed curves are for the tip edge; for the solid curve there are no constraints to11
bending;
at B. the dashed curve was obtained with bending constraints added
 Figure 5–28 Plate in tension containing a circular hole with two
cracks.

Figure 5–27 Beams of rectangular cross section having an edge 12

crack.
Fracture Toughness
• The stress intensity factor K describes the state of stress near a crack tip.
• It is found experimentally that existing cracks will propagate (I.e. grow) when the stress
intensity factor K reaches a critical value called the fracture toughness.
• The fracture toughness is denoted by or
• The fracture toughness is a material property that can be measured and tabulated
• Plane strain conditions are the most conservative
• We have failure by fracture when grows to

• Factor of Safety in Fracture

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Summary of LEFM

• Elastic analysis, based on the assumption of elastic behavior at the crack tip (I.e. no large-scale
plastic deformations occur), shows that the conditions for crack propagation are controlled by the
magnitude
of the elastic stress intensity factor

where depends on the geometry of the component and crack.

• It has been found experimentally that a pre-existing crack will propagate when the stress intensity
factor reaches a critical value called the fracture toughness
Crack will not propagate
Crack will propagate

• The factor of safety for a given stress intensity factor is:

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Values of for Some Metals

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 Problem
•A steel ship deck plate is 30 mm thick and 12 m wide. It is loaded with a nominal uniaxial
tensile stress of 50 MPa. It is operated below its ductile-to-brittle transition temperature with
KI c equal to 28.3 MPa. If a 65-mm-long central transverse crack is present, estimate the
tensile stress at which catastrophic failure will occur. Compare this stress with the yield
strength of 240 MPa for this steel
•
•For Fig. 5–25, with d = b, 2a = 65 mm and 2b = 12 m, so that d/b = 1 and a/d = 65/12(103)
= 0.00542. Since a/d is so small, β = 1, so that

The stress at which catastrophic failure occurs is

The yield strength is 240 MPa, and catastrophic failure occurs at 88.4/240 = 0.37, or at 37 percent of yield. The factor
of safety in this circumstance is and not .
Fracture occurs well before yielding

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 • A plate of width 1.4 m and length 2.8 m is required to support a tensile force in the 2.8-m
direction of 4.0 MN. Inspection procedures will detect only through-thickness edge cracks larger
than 2.7 mm. The two Ti-6AL-4V alloys in Table 5–1 are being considered for this application, for
which the safety factor must be 1.3 and minimum weight is important. Which alloy should be
used?

Solution (a) We elect first to estimate the thickness required to resist yielding. Since σ = P/wt, we
have t = P/wσ. For the weaker alloy, we have, from Table 5–1, Sy = 910 MPa. Thus,

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 • For the stronger alloy, we have, from Table 5–1,

and so the thickness is

(b) Now let us find the thickness required to prevent crack growth. Using Fig.
5–26, we have

Corresponding to these ratios we find from Fig. 5–26 that β = 1.1, and KI =
1.1σ√πa.

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• From Table 5–1, KI c = 115 MPa √m for the weaker of the two alloys. Solving for σ with n
= 1 gives the fracture stress

which is greater than the yield strength of 910 MPa, and so yield strength is the basis for
the geometry decision. For the stronger alloy Sy = 1035 MPa, with n = 1 the fracture
stress is

which is less than the yield strength of 1035 MPa. The thickness t is

This example shows that the fracture toughness KI c limits the geometry when the stronger alloy
is used, and so a thickness of 6.84 mm or larger is required. When the weaker alloy is used the
geometry is limited by the yield strength, giving a thickness of only 4.08 mm or greater. Thus the
weaker alloy leads to a thinner and lighter weight choice since the failure modes differ.
Best design solution: use weak alloy (A) with t = 4.08 mm governed by yielding
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Effects of Small Scale Yielding at the Crack Tip

• • Stress redistribution accompanies plastic yielding and causes

the plastic zone to to extend approximately

• The size of the plastic zone can be investigated as follows:

• It may be shown that

• • Stress redistribution accompanies plastic yielding and causes

the plastic zone to extend approximately

• ahead of the real crack tip to satisfy equilibrium conditions

(see figure).

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Effects of Small Scale Yielding at the Crack Tip

• To account for this, we think of the plastic zone as providing a virtual crack tip extension to a new
effective crack size:

We observe that:

the use of which now requires an iterative solution because depends on

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Concluding Remarks:

• In many problems, the plastic zone is very small and can be neglected in determining the stress
intensity factor.
• However, when the stress intensity factor approaches the fracture toughness value, the plastic zone
correction becomes significant and should be investigated.
• If the plastic zone size becomes “large” relative to the crack size the accuracy of LEFM becomes
questionable, and an elastic-plastic fracture mechanics approach should be considered

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Problems
• A long rectangular plate has a width of 100 mm, thickness
of 5 mm and an axial load of 50 kN. If the plate is made of
titanium Ti-6AL-4V, ( , ) what is the factor of safety
against crack growth for a crack of length a = 20 mm

• We wish to compute the stress intensity factor so that we

can evaluate:

,
Now

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 Problem

• The round bar of aluminum 2024-T851 has a sharp notch around its
circumference. Assume:,
Find:
(a) The size of the plastic zone at the crack tip.
(b) The fracture load

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