Fracture mechanics crack size

Fracture mechanics is now quite weU estabHshed for metals, and a number of ASTM standards have been defined (4—6). For other materials, standardization efforts are underway (7,8). The techniques and procedures are being adapted from the metals Hterature. The concepts are appHcable to any material, provided the stmcture of the material can be treated as a continuum relative to the size-scale of the primary crack. There are many textbooks on the subject covering the appHcation of fracture mechanics to metals, polymers, and composites (9—15) (see Composite materials). 

Substantial work on the appHcation of fracture mechanics techniques to plastics has occurred siace the 1970s (215—222). This is based on earlier work on inorganic glasses, which showed that failure stress is proportional to the square root of the energy required to create the new surfaces as a crack grows and iaversely with the square root of the crack size (223). For the use of linear elastic fracture mechanics ia plastics, certaia assumptioas must be met (224) (/) the material is linearly elastic (2) the flaws within the material are sharp and (J) plane strain conditions apply ia the crack froat regioa. 

The elastic stress cannot exceed the yield stress of the material, implying a region of local yielding at the crack tip. Nevertheless, to apply the simple framework of hnear elastic fracture mechanics, Irwin [J. Applied Mechanics, 24, 361 (1957)] proposed that this process zone size / be treated as an effective increase in crack length be. Fracture toughness is then given by... 

The basic assumptions of fracture mechanics are (1) that the material behaves as a linear elastic isotropic continuum and (2) the crack tip inelastic zone size is small with respect to all other dimensions. Here we will consider the limitations of using the term K = YOpos Ttato describe the mechanical driving force for crack extension of small cracks at values of stress that are high with respect to the elastic limit. 

The above results are derived from linear elastic fracture mechanics and are strictly valid for ideally brittle materials with the limit of the process zone size going to zero. In order to apply this simple framework of results, Irwin (1957) proposed that the process zone, r be treated as an effective increase in crack length, Sc. With this modification, the fracture toughness becomes... 

In this fracture mechanics approach, the rate of crack growth is a function of the maximum value of tearing energy attained during the fatigue cycle. For a strip with an edge or central cut cycled in tension, a relation between cycles to failure and the initial cut size for the case where that cut is relatively very small can be derived8,9 ... 

Many variables used and phenomena described by fracture mechanics concepts depend on the history of loading (its rate, form and/or duration) and on the (physical and chemical) environment. Especially time-sensitive are the level of stored and dissipated energy, also in the region away from the crack tip (far held), the stress distribution in a cracked visco-elastic body, the development of a sub-critical defect into a stress-concentrating crack and the assessment of the effective size of it, especially in the presence of microyield. The role of time in the execution and analysis of impact and fatigue experiments as well as in dynamic fracture is rather evident. To take care of the specihcities of time-dependent, non-linearly deforming materials and of the evident effects of sample plasticity different criteria for crack instability and/or toughness characterization have been developed and appropriate corrections introduced into Eq. 3, which will be discussed in most contributions of this special Double Volume (Vol. 187 and 188). 

---