Linear Elastic Fracture Mechanics and Elasto-Plastic Fracture

Mechanics

Content
Historical development, Contributions of Inglis,
Griffith and Irwin. Extremum cases of an elliptical
hole, Various results of fracture in glass, Classification
of LEFM (Linear Elastic Fracture Mechanics) and EPFM
(Elasto-Plastic Fracture Mechanics) - based on plastic
deformation, materials and applications.
Historical development: Contributions of Inglis,
Griffith and Irwin
• If you look at history, the first problem leading to stress
concentration was solved by Kirsch in 1898.
• He solved the problem of an infinite plate with a small circular
hole.
• This was possible because polar coordinates as well as Cartesian
rectangular coordinates had been developed.
• So, the hole can be modeled from a polar coordinate system.
• The first problem solved by Kirsch was that of a circular hole in a
tension strip.
• It took almost fifteen years for Inglis to go and repeat the same
for an elliptical hole.
Historical development: Contributions of Inglis,
Griffith and Irwin
The study of elliptical holes in a tension strip by Charles Inglis (1913)
has brought into focus the severity of a crack in a structure.

Grifith in 1920 considered the propagation of cracks in glass and

developed right ideas for crack growth.
= Far field stress
=major axis
= minor axis
= variation of stress

Charles E. Inglis's linear elastic

solution in 1913 for the stress field
surrounding an ellipse is the next
major step in the development of
Linear Elastic Fracture Mechanics
(LEFM) Theory [1].

The variation of is shown

Inglis found that is related to the far
field stress, by a factor 1 plus 2 a by b.
Historical development: Contributions of Inglis, Griffith and Irwin

Inglis proposed that stress at the tip of the ellipse is related

to its size and shape by

The moment when b tends to 0, the multiplication factor

goes to infinity.
What is the meaning of that? One meaning is the stresses go
very high.
Other meaning is the methodology of stress concentration
to ascribe to a crack, no longer is valid.
You need improved mathematical approaches to handle the
problem of a crack.
You can verify, whether the solution is correct by changing
the minor axis.
 Extremum Cases of the Elliptical Hole

θ
r
If I make the minor axis equal to the
major axis, i.e. a=b ( a circular hole),
the maximum value of stress, is ,
which agrees with the results given by
Kirsh
The maximum value of increases
without bound as , that is, as the semi
circular axis b becomes smaller and
smaller relative to a.

Ellipse becomes a crack in that case

and one requires newer approaches to
handle such a problem
 Extremum Cases of the Elliptical Hole

• For the case of a crack, the stress values will go

to infinity .
• In reality, nothing can go into infinity. At most,
the stresses can reach the plastic condition .
• The direct interpretation of Inglis will only
alarm you that nothing can remain in solid
form, if I have a crack; because even, for a very
small load, you will have an infinite stress and
structure may eventually break into pieces
 Griffith Dilemma
In order to explain, why structures remain with cracks, Griffith was
able to come out with a theory that, you need energy for the crack to
grow. That was the contribution by Griffith in 1920.
He was particularly interested in propagation of cracks in glass. And,
he developed right ideas for crack growth. This is very important.
Griffith indicated that Inglis solution is very important. It alerted us
that crack is more dangerous.
Griffith provided a logical explanation that you will have structures
with crack. Just because it has a crack, you need not have to discard.
The cracks will grow and attain a critical dimension; only then,
fracture will occur.
When you do postmortem, it is distinctly shown that there is a crack
growth region followed by fracture.
So, the contribution of Griffith in 1920 was very very important.
 Historical development
• Griffith formulated that an existing crack will
grow provided the total energy of the system
is lowered by its growth
• His work was not noticed at the time due to
exigencies of the World War and the following
depression worldwide.
• Griffith was not able to coin a convenient
parameter for predicting the failure load of a
component through the growth of a crack
 Historical development
• In order to give meaningful interpretation of results one needs to
make a convenient parameter.
• Until a convenient parameter was coined, fracture mechanics
was not given a lot of attention by people.
• The contribution of a meaningful parameter was done by Irwin in
1948.
• So in 1920 or 1922 Griffith did all these experiments. Only in
1948, Irwin extended this to ductile materials; whatever the work
that was done by Griffith, was on glass.
• So, what you need to appreciate is, the contribution of Inglis is
very important.
• Note that the understanding of Griffith is good.
• He had right ideas for crack growth, but he was not able to
 Various results of fracture in glass-Healing of a crack in Brittle materials (Glass)

Crack tip at no load Crack growth when loaded

• A ball pen when pressed against glass, the crack grows in length. The moment I remove the
load, you find there is a semblance of healing of the crack.
• In fact, in brittle solids like Mica and Glass, Griffith observed when the loads are removed,
the crack heals.
• See, this is very advantageous for us. Suppose, I want to go and do an energy method, it is
easy for me to formulate the equations that allows me to find out, what is the energy
• required for the crack to grow? And also energy required to close the crack?
Various results of fracture in glass-Branching of a crack in Brittle materials (Glass)
If you have one crack having a particular speed. Then suddenly, it branches out as two
cracks when speed increases

Note that increase in crack speed beyond a certain speed causes

the crack to branch

From Fracture Mechanics point of view, if I develop a fracture theory, the fracture theory
should be able to say why a crack branches out.

Dynamic photoelasticity has shown that the crack can take only the Rayleigh wave speed. It
cannot go faster than that. So, more energy cannot be dissipated.
So, if more energy has to be dissipated, the crack has to branch out.
 In Nondestructive testing, you will have
to find out, how to detect a crack and
also how to monitor the crack.

we have already noticed that Fracture Mechanics is a broad area covering several disciplines.
Material science, Nondestructive testing, Stress analysis and design.
The Material Science covers fracture (cleavage fracture or a ductile fracture), the
fracture process and also measurement of fracture toughness.
 Fracture Mechanics is a Broad Area covering several Disciplines

Fracture Mechanics attempts to account for the existence of

inherent flaws in structures and thus is closer to reality in
modeling engineering problems

It uses stress analysis to determine the SIF, material science

to determine fracture toughness and NDT to determine the
initial flaw size
In stress analysis and design we have several issues. We want
to develop the stress field ahead of crack. Using that as an
information and also the information on fracture toughness,
we could go for improved design methodologies.
And, we had already seen, Fracture Mechanics has to help us
to have damage tolerant design approach.

Design for a given safe life is possible if the above mentioned

three inputs are available

In difficult installations like nuclear power, where any

accident can lead to a catastrophe, you would like to invoke,
what is known as Fail safe design.
Classification of LEFM and EPFM
• There are two broad theories/categories of fracture Mechanics.

1. One is Linear Elastic Fracture Mechanics (LEFM).

2. The other is Elasto-plastic Fracture Mechanics (EPFM).

• The whole of Fracture Mechanics focuses on structures made of

ductile, high strength alloys. This is very important. You don’t apply
Fracture Mechanics to mild steel.

• Only for high strength alloys, Fracture Mechanics is applied.

• The high strength alloys fail in a brittle fashion has prompted the birth
of Fracture Mechanics.
 Classification of LEFM and EPFM
• Structures made of ductile high strength alloys failing in a brittle fashion
prompted the birth of fracture mechanics.
• Linear Elastic Fracture Mechanics (LEFM)
 Extension of Griffith's ideas for brittle solids to ductile high strength
materials was done by Irwin in 1948.
 The main focus of Irwin's theory is on the crack tip rather than the
crack; by moving the analysis to the crack-tip, Irwin devised workable
parameters like stress intensity factor and energy release rate.
 LEFM accounts only for small scale yielding (SSY) near the crack-tip.
 LEFM is quite useful for analyzing problems in aerospace structures.
• Elasto-Plastic Fracture Mechanics (EPFM)
 Role of plastic deformation near the crack-tip is better accounted in
EPFM.
 For situations where material behavior is non-linear such as in
nuclear applications, EPFM is essential.
Classification of LEFM and EPFM
• Based on materials and applications
• We take this more as a guideline, rather than as rigid rule
• Typical materials for which LEFM is applicable (at room
temperature) are
 High strength steel, precipitation hardened aluminium,
polymers below glass transition temperature, ceramics,
ceramic composites.
• Typical materials for which EPFM/Non-linear Fracture
Mechanics is applicable are
 Low and medium-strength steel, metals at high temperatures
or high strain rates, polymers above glass transition
temperature, ceramics at high temperatures.
Classification of LEFM and EPFM
Based on the plastic zone.
The plastic zone in the case of a plane strain is much smaller than, what you have in the
case of a plane stress.

when I have a crack, you will invariably have

plastic zone at the crack tip.
The plastic zone is highly localized and in fact, if
the plastic zone is slightly spread as in a plane
stress condition, it is beneficial from Fracture
Mechanics point of view.
 Classification
Based on the plastic zone.
of LEFM and EPFM

Then, we have another set of material, which is more ductile in plane stress or plane strain.
You have still higher plastic zone and you also have situations, where the plastic zone is
visibly spread.
For ductile material with spread of plasticity, until a certain apply EPFM, beyond some point
you need to go for plastic collapse; because certain structures can fail by plastic collapse.
So, this gives an overall idea how plastic zone indirectly dictates, which type of theory you
have to invoke as a first approximation to handle the problem.
 Modes of Loading
• Irwin observed that there are three independent ways in which the two
crack faces can move with respect to each other.
• The corresponding modes are labeled as Mode I, Mode II and Mode III.
• The three modes describe all the possible modes of crack behavior in
the most general elastic state.
• A cracked body can be loaded in any one of these modes, or as a
combination of two or three modes.

This is contribution by
Irwin. Observed that
there are three
independent ways, in
which the two
crack faces can move
with respect to each
other.
 labeled as Mode I. This is also called as
Opening Mode. Mainly because you have the
crack and the crack opens up like this.

Mode I loading is the most dangerous. And even, when we want to find
out the stress field equations, we would develop the stress field
equations for mode I. Then, followed by Mode II and Mode III.
Mode II is also known as a Sliding Mode.
The crack surface slides.
Called in-plane shear mode or sliding mode.
 Modes of Loading
So, for a given loading, you need find out what is the value
of SIF KI, KII and KIII?
From a material test, you find out what is the fracture
toughness for Mode I, Mode II and Mode III. And, they are
labeled as KIc, KIIc and KIIIc; the c denotes it is a critical value.
And, this is considered as a material parameter.
And, it should be noted that in the case of simple strength
of materials, when you had combined loading, you
invented the concept of principal stresses.
 Modes of Loading
And, you utilize the result from a simple tension test of the yield
strength. And, you find out how the failure will occur in combined
loading. You do only one test.

So, similarly in Fracture Mechanics, when we go and look at fracture

theories, even though we talk about KIc, KIIc, KIIIc, people find out KIC
and try to find out how well it can be utilized to predict a combined
mode failure.
That’s why there are commonalities between conventional strength of
materials as well as in Fracture Mechanics.
From a mathematical point of view, we need all the parameters, that
will enable us to design safe structures.
We have to find out a simpler procedure for you to implement it.
 Fracture Mechanics should be Able to Answer the
Following Questions
• What is the critical length of a crack?
• For a given crack length what is the residual strength?
• What is the time that would take for a crack to grow?
• How is the NDT schedule decided?
• What causes the crack to branch?
• What are the energy dissipating mechanisms?

• Lecture Summary
• we looked at historical development of what was the contribution
of Inglis, Griffith and how Irwin extended it.
• Then, we had a brief outline of how to classify LEFM and EPFM.
• We have seen some fractures in the case of glass
• We have raised certain questions that needs to be answered as
 Fracture Mechanics as a Holistic Methodology
New test for fracture mechanics, Crack-growth curves, Residual strength diagram, Summary
of fracture parameters. Practical examples of fracture, Typical photoelastic fringes and
Mixed mode loadings

We had raised a few questions that fracture mechanics should be able to answer; these
are:
1. what is the critical length of a crack?
2. For a given crack length, what is the residual strength?
3. What is the time that would take for a crack to grow?
4. How is the NDT schedule decided?
5. What causes the crack to branch?
6. What are the energy dissipating mechanisms?
For all these four questions, you cannot find an answer by performing only a tension test or
a fatigue test. You need to have an additional test to find answers for these questions.

The last two questions were: what causes the crack to branch? What are the energy
dissipating mechanisms? These two are very fundamental in nature. When we develop the
concepts related to energy release rate, we would be able to appreciate how these
questions can be answered.
 Fracture Mechanics as a Holistic Methodology
• To get the critical crack length, how
long the crack will take to grow, a new
experiment for fracture mechanics is
needed.

• And this is what is schematically shown.

Here you have a specimen, which is
subjected to fatigue loading.

• Because of the fatigue loading, the

crack grows in service
• One can monitor the growth of the
crack by a suitable probe.

• This is only a schematic. There could be many methods by which they could monitor the
growth of crack. And you essentially collect the data of crack length versus number of
cycles.
• This is done for various amplitudes of load applied; delta P1, delta P2 and delta P3.
 Fracture Mechanics as a Holistic Methodology

• In general, when you change the amplitude of the loading, these graphs also
will differ. And you start with the initial crack.
• The graphs obtained are called as crack growth curves.
• So, if I have to answer questions related to crack growth, I need to do a series of
experiments and collect data.
• So, if one adopts a fracture mechanics methodology, the whole program
becomes expensive. Moreover, unless you conduct additional tests, you will not
be in a position to answer the questions that we have raised.
• If you recall, fatigue test was conducted to record after how many cycles the
specimen has failed; it has not really monitored the crack growth.
• Another important aspect is, for one material, if I have number of such graphs,
it won’t be convenient from a design point of view.

• This data was analyzed and reduced very intelligently by Paris by re-plotting
whatever the data collected, by a different graph with log delta K in the x axis
and log of da by dN in the y axis.
 Fracture Mechanics as a Holistic Methodology-Paris law

• And you get a straight line, and this is known as

famous Paris law.

• We would see in detail during the later part of the

course.
• Where; is the change in stress intensity factor, C
and m are material constants.
• So, you have to perform this kind of a test; on the
basis of the test find out C and m. If you really have
C and m, it is possible for you to find out the way the
crack will grow.
• So, that is the success of fracture mechanics. You are
able to predict how the crack will grow and when
does it become critical.
• That is possible only when you do an additional test.
 Fracture Mechanics as a Holistic Methodology
We should find out, during the service life, what is the component of life before crack
initiation and what is the component of life when the crack grows.

• It is observed that the crack initiation

period is generally much longer than
the crack propagation period.
• Considering the S-N diagram re-plotted
with different axis; namely log of
fatigue life in x-axis; and alternating
stress range in y-axix.
• This is a non-linear curve rather than a
straight line. And what does this give?

Schematic representation of the Fatigue Life showing relative proportion of Life for crack
initiation and propagation
 Fracture Mechanics as a Holistic Methodology

• The S-N graph redrawn shows that for a given alternating value
of stress, the crack initiation period is much longer than the
crack propagation period.
• So, you really take an advantage, if you delay the crack initiation
phase. And this is what metallurgists focus upon. They find out
methodologies, how the crack initiation can be delayed.
• In fact, if you have blunting of the crack-tip, it would delay the
crack growth.
• In general, you may say plasticity is bad, however, from fracture
point of view, the local plastic deformation is beneficial.
• The local plastic deformation will make the crack blunt. All
these issues will come up later.
Fracture Mechanics as a Holistic Methodology-Residual strength Diagram
• If you are able to address the issue of crack initiation, then you are much better off.
• This is also a function of the operating alternating stress.
• So, there could be a point where crack initiation period and crack propagation period may
be fifty- fifty
• So, it depends on the given
application. So, you have to work
upon crack initiation as well as
crack propagation. Working only
on crack propagation will not
help you for your design scenario.
• And we have already said, that
we need to find out, for a given
crack length, what is the residual
strength. And this is again shown
schematically. You have on the x
axis crack size is plotted.

• So, when you have no crack or crack length is 0, you have the conventional design strength.
• So, obviously, when you have a crack you cannot operate with that strength.
• In fact, if you look at some of the old bridges, they would have discarded it; they would say that it is
permissible to allow only two wheelers; they will not allow heavy truck to go on that bridge.
Fracture Mechanics as a Holistic Methodology-Residual strength Diagram

• So, that means, you have reduced the load that would be taken by
the structure.
• And this is what, one of the important results that we want to get
from fracture mechanics.
• So, you need to get residual strength diagrams.
• This shows, for different crack lengths, how the service load should
be limited.
• Though I have what is known as critical crack length, we do not want
to operate or go up to the critical crack length.
• We want to define what is known as a permissible crack length. And
this is dictated by a factor, very similar to safety factor.
• You call this as Nc and you name it as crack length safety factor. So,
using this, what you want to do is, you want to find out what is the
maximum stress that you can go, and what is the corresponding
permissible crack length.
Fracture Mechanics as a Holistic Methodology-Residual strength Diagram

• So, you borrow the ideas from your conventional design

methodology.
• You have a factor of safety; you don’t operate at the calculated
failure stress; you operate much below that by bringing in a
factor of safety.
• Similarly, by fracture mechanics calculation you find out what is
a critical crack length, and in order to take care of uncertainties,
do not operate at that crack length, but operate at a crack
length below that.
• How below, depends on what kind of confidence level you have
in your analysis.
• The other question that we would like to know is, what is the
time available for inspecting the crack? We will have a look at it.
Fracture Mechanics as a Holistic Methodology-NDT Schedule

• So, we want to look at the crack growth by plotting a crack size versus time.
• And we start with a premise that, you will have a minimum crack that would be
detectable by your nondestructive testing methodology.
• And we have already noted that, there is something called permissible crack length.
• On the crack growth curve you can find out, when does the crack grows to the
length
• So, that would give you, what is the time available for inspection.
 Fracture Mechanics as a Holistic Methodology-NDT Schedule

• Only on this basis, you would be in a position to decide on the NDT

schedule.
• In fact, if you look at, in conventional design also, when you look at
railway stations, when the train stops, there would be someone
sitting below and then hitting the bottom of the bogies at
appropriate places. He is actually doing a vibration test to find out
whether there are any structural damage.
• For aircrafts, every time they land, they do certain minimal
inspection.
• And aircrafts go through exhaustive structural monitoring during its
service life.
Fracture Mechanics as a Holistic Methodology
Fracture Mechanics as a Holistic Methodology
Fracture Parameters-a Summary
 Fracture Mechanics as a Holistic Methodology
• We would see mathematics basis of the parameters
• Meanwhile, we need to appreciate some of the conceptual development.
• And fracture mechanics was made useful to society, and people realized that they
could find out the useful parameter that was initiated by Irwin, who coined a
parameter called K, which is labeled as stress intensity factor.
• A symbol K was given in honor of one of his collaborator Keis.
• And if you look at the development, the concept of K was based on stress analysis.

• And you should also note down that K has a unit of .

• It’s a very funny unit.
• You know, particularly, when you have to do conversion of units from fps to SI
system, you will have to be very careful.

• The root meter is going to be a nuisance. You have to keep that in mind. And
before fracture mechanics, you had only the concept of stress concentration factor.
 Fracture Mechanics as a Holistic Methodology
The contribution of Inglis was, when you have a crack, simply saying it has
stress concentration no longer valid; you need to have new approaches. If you
look at stress concentration factor, it had no units. It is only a number. On the
other hand, to model a crack, you have a parameter called stress intensity
factor, which has a very funny unit MPa root meter.
Then you have another concept, which was introduced by Rice, which is known
as J integral. This is again energy based and this is in honor of James Rice.

So, you have this as, labeled as J. It has units of Newton per millimeter. And in
fact, for non-linear fracture mechanics as well as elasto-plastic fracture
mechanics, J was a very convenient parameter to model the stress field.

And parallely, you know in UK, people developed another concept, which is
known as COD, crack opening displacement. It is in terms of millimeters. This is
displacement based; this was developed by Wells. And there is also another
related concept, which is known as CTOD. This is crack-tip opening
displacement.
Fracture Mechanics as a Holistic Methodology

Practical examples of fracture

Fracture Mechanics as a Holistic Methodology
 Fracture Mechanics as a Holistic Methodology

You find the crack has originated below the surface, because you have
contact loading here. In the contact loading the maximum stresses
occurs beneath the surface. It does not occur on the surface.
See in most of the problems, maximum stress occurs at the surface.
Contact problems are far different. This is one of the issues in gears
also, because you have involute profile, that they come in contact,
you know flakes of material that come out; because cracks generate
below the surface and then flakes of material come out in operation.
Fracture Mechanics as a Holistic Methodology
 Fracture Mechanics as a Holistic Methodology

• So, we have raised certain questions that fracture mechanics

should be able to answer; in order to answer such questions, you
need to conduct more tests.
• First do a test on fracture toughness that is a material test.
• Apart from that, you need to record crack growth as a function of
number of cycles.
• Then, we moved on to, saying that fracture mechanics is holistic
in its approach. You have different recommendations for thin and
thick specimens.
• Then, we looked at series of service failures, which brought out,
definitely, there is a crack growth phase followed by fracture.