Orowan-Griffith Theory

With ship failures during and immediately following World War II, interest in the Griffith theory was revived. Orowan [6] and Irwin [7] both recognized that significant plastic deformation accompanied crack advance in metallic materials, and that the plastic work about the advancing crack contributed to the work required... 

The classic Griffith-Orowan theory describes the relationship between strength and toughness of brittle materials such as ceramics (Griffith, 1920 Orowan, 1949). In the simple basic equation of the theory, the stress to fracture <7f is related to Youngs elastic modulus E, the fracture energy y and the critical crack length c by... 

Orowan considered Griffith s [22] theory. If no plastic deformation occurs, the radius of curvature at the tip of a crack must be equal to the atomic radius, a , representing the sharpest crack. By using the stress-concentration factor at the tip... 

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