Introduction, Mechanisms of Fracture, a crack in structure, the Griffith’s criterion, modern design – strengths, stiffness and toughness. Stress intensity approach
Linear elastic fracture mechanics, Crack tip stress and deformations, Relation between stress intensity factor and fracture toughness, Stress intensity based solutions. Crack tip plastic zone estimation, Plane stress and plane strain concepts. The Dugdale approach, the thickness effect.
Introduction, Elasto–plastic factor criteria, crack resistance curve, J-integral, Crack opening displacement, crack tip opening displacement. Importance of R-curve in fracture mechanics, experimental determination of J-integral, COD and CTOD.
Introduction, the dynamic stress intensity and elastic energy release rate, crack branching, the principles of crack arrest, the dynamic fracture toughness.
Fatigue loading, various stages of crack propagation, the load spectrum, approximation of the stress spectrum, the crack growth integration, fatigue crack growth laws.
Fracture criteria, fatigue cracking criteria, effect of alloying and second phase particles, effect of processing and anisotropy, effect of temperature, closure.
Overview of numerical methods, traditional methods in computational fracture mechanics – stress and displacement marching, elemental crack advance, virtual crack extension, the energy domain integral, finite element implementation. Limitations of numerical fracture analysis.
Specimen size requirements, various test procedures, effects of temperature, loading rate and plate thickness on fracture toughness. Fracture testing in shear modes, fatigue testing, NDT methods.