Stress intensity factor measurement

Step 2. After a contact time t, the material is fractured or fatigued and the mechanical properties determined. The measured properties will be a function of the test configuration, rate of testing, temperature, etc., and include the critical strain energy release rate Gic, the critical stress intensity factor K[c, the critical... 

Critical Stress Intensity Factor It has become common to use AT scc> the critical stress intensity factor, as a measure of the resistance of an alloy to s.c.c. Tests are performed on specimens which are precracked by a fatigue machine and must be of sufficient dimensions to ensure plane strain conditions. Recommendations on precracking and dimensions are given elsewhere . ... 

Fracture Mechanics Tests One problem of both sustained load and slow strain-rate tests is that they do not provide a means of predicting the behaviour of components containing defects (other than the inherent defect associated with the notch in a sustained load test). Fracture mechanics provides a basis for such tests (Section 8.9), and measurements of crack velocity as a function of stress intensity factor, K, are widely used. A typical graph of crack velocity as a function of K is shown in Fig. 8.48. Several regions may be seen on this curve. At low stress intensity factors no crack growth is... 

Pre-cracked specimens are sometimes useful for other reasons than the analysis that they afiford in relation to stress-intensity factors. Such applications may be associated with the simulation of service situations, the relative ease with which stress-corrosion cracks can be initiated at pre-cracks or the advantages that sometimes accrue from the propagation of a single crack. The claim that has sometimes been made of pre-cracked specimen tests-that they circumvent the initiation stage of cracking in plain specimens, erroneously assumed invariably to be related to the creation of a corrosion pit that provides a measure of stress concentration approaching that... 

A-2.8.1 Pressure and Temperature. An important general trend is that structural metals become more susceptible to hydrogen embrittlement as hydrogen gas pressure increases. An example of this trend is the measured threshold stress intensity factor, Km, as a function of gas pressure for low-alloy steels. Kjh decreases as gas pressure increases. Increasing hydrogen gas pressure enhances the concentration of dissolved hydrogen in materials, which promotes hydrogen embrittlement. 

The term fracture toughness or toughness with a symbol, R or Gc, used throughout this chapter refers to the work dissipated in creating new fracture surfaces of a unit nominal cross-sectional area, or the critical potential energy release rate, of a composite specimen with a unit kJ/m. Fracture toughness is also often measured in terms of the critical stress intensity factor, with a unit MPay/m, based on linear elastic fracture mechanics (LEFM) principle. The various micro-failure mechanisms that make up the total specific work of fracture or fracture toughness are discussed in this section. 

Secondly, Irwin 6) found that the stress field around a sharp crack in a linear elastic material could be uniquely defined by a parameter named the stress-intensity factor, K and stated that fracture occurs when the value of K, exceeds some critical value, K C. Thus, K, is a stress field parameter independent of the material whereas Klc, often referred to as the fracture toughness, is a measure of a material property. Again the subscript I is used to denote the tensile-opening mode. 

The measured stress intensity factor, K,c, at the onset of crack growth is related to the applied stress, ct0, by... 

A comparison of the crack velocities measured under static and cyclic loads is illustrated in Fig. 7.2. For this purpose, the crack velocity under cyclic loads, da/dt = da/dN x vc, plotted against the maximum stress intensity factor of the fatigue cycle, Kmax = AA7(1 — R), from the results shown in Fig. 7.1. The static crack velocity da/dt is also plotted against the stress intensity factor Kj corresponding to the applied load. In the intermediate range of crack growth, the static crack velocity generally follows the power-law relationship... 

Sol fraction 17, 25, 35, 39, 50 Soluble fractions 123,130 Spanning tree approximation 22 Stable fracture 134 Static light-scattering 7 Statistical links 126 Stick-slip fracture 133, 135 Strain hardening 145 Stress intensity factor 133 —strain measurement 42 Substitution effect 21, 28, 30... 

FIGURE 7.6 Fatigue crack propagation rate (daldN) vs. stress intensity factor range (AK) relationships measured in low-pressure hydrogen gas for two low-alloy steels with different tensile strengths. " ... 

A third method which recently provided considerable insight into the role of crazes in deformation and fracture of amorphous polymers is the optical interference measurement of crazes (preceding a crack). Since the pioneer work of Kambour, this method has been widely used to determine characteristic craze dimensions and critical displacements. W. Doll gives an overview on recent results and on their interpretation in terms of fracture mechanics parameters (stress intensity factor, plastic zone sizes, fracture surface morphology, fracture energy). 

From measures of band width and knowledge of the prevailing stress intensity factor, K, one can compute the craze yield stress, S, from the fracture mechanics relation... 

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