10/18/2008

Lecturer : Assoc. Prof. Dr. Tich Thien TRUONG

Failure Mechanics
1 Structural Design
1. Design, an Overview
2. Fracture Mechanics
3. Fatigue
4. Creep
5 F
5. Failure
il Mechanics
M h i

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Structural Design, an Overview
The ultimate goal in the field of applied solid mechanics is to be able to design
structures or components that are capable of safely withstanding static or
dynamic service loads for a certain period of time. In general, we may
summarize the activities usually carried out during design, manufacture, and
testing of a product as shown
Partitioning Integration
User 
User Tests Acceptance
Requirements

System 
System Tests Verification
Requirements

Integration 
Architecture Assembly
Tests

Sub‐Systems 
Detail Design Sub‐Systems
Tests

Manufacture

Structural Design, an Overview
In the above process, most of the engineering decisions are based on semi-
empirical design rules, which rely on phenomenological failure criteria
calibrated by means of standard tests. The failure criteria are derived based
on extensive observations of failure mechanisms, together with theoretical
models that have been developed to describe these mechanisms.
In the view of the above arguments, perhaps one of the most important
questions in the design process would be: What Constitutes Mechanical
Failure?
In general, various failure mechanisms may be classified into the two
broad fields of Deformation and Fracture. A more detailed list is:
Excessive Elastic Deformation
Unstable Elastic Deformation (Buckling)
Plastic Deformation
Fracture
Fatigue
Creep
Stress Corrosion Cracking

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Structural Design, an Overview
The occurrence of each failure mode depends on various factors as depicted
in the following figure.
Environment 
Time Scale  Corrosive?
Short, Long Static Time 
Dependent
Elastic 
Permanent

Fracture Deformation

Load: Static, 
Dynamic Temperature

Design Philosophies

For many applications, it’s sufficient to determine the maximum static or

dynamic stress that the material can withstand, and then design the
structure to ensure that the stresses remain below acceptable limits.
This involves fairly routine constitutive modeling and numerical or
analytical solution of appropriate boundary value problems. More
critical applications require some kind of defect tolerance
analysis.
In these cases, the material or structure is considered to contain flaws,
and we must decide whether to replace the part; or leave it in service
under a more tolerable loading for a certain period of time. This kind of
decision is usually made using the disciplines of Fracture Mechanics.

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Design Philosophies

In general, we may distinguish three different design philosophies as follows:

Safe Life: The component is considered to be free of defects after fabrication
and is designed to remain defect-free
defect free during service and withstand the
maximum static or dynamic working stresses for a certain period of time. If
flaws, cracks, or similar damages are visited during service the component
should be discarded immediately.
Fail Safe: The component is designed to withstand the maximum static or
dynamic working stresses for a certain period of time in such a way that its
probable failure would not be catastrophic. For example a pressure vessel
designed to work under the leakbefore- burst (LBB) condition should show
leakage as a result of crack propagation.
propagation The aim is to prevent catastrophic
failure by detecting the crack at its early stages of growth and also reducing
the internal pressure.
Damage Tolerance: The component is designed to withstand the maximum
static or dynamic working stresses for a certain period of time even in
presence of flaws, cracks, or similar damages of certain geometry and size.

Fracture Mechanics
Fracture mechanics is a field of solid mechanics that deals with the
mechanical behavior of cracked bodies.

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Fracture Mechanics
The first major step in the direction of quantification of the effects of crack-
like defects was taken by a professor of Naval Architecture, C. E. Inglis. In
1913 he published a stress analysis for an elliptical hole in an infinite linear
elastic plate loaded at its outer boundaries.
boundaries By making the minor axis very
much less than the major, a crack-like discontinuity can be modeled.

Fracture Mechanics
A. A. Griffith, who was studying the effects of scratches and similar flaws on
aircraft engine components, transformed the Inglis analysis by calculating the
effect of the crack on the strain energy stored in an infinite cracked plate. He
proposed that this energy,
energy which is a finite quantity,
quantity should be taken as a
measure of the tendency of the crack to propagate. Griffith also made a
fundamental step forward by carrying out tests on cracked glass spheres and
showing that the simple elastic analysis could be applied to describe the
propagation of different size cracks at different stress levels.
The mechanics of fracture progressed from being a scientific curiosity to an
engineering discipline, primarily because of what happened to the Liberty
ships during World War II. The Liberty ships had an all-welded hull, as
opposed to the riveted construction of traditional ship designs.
designs Of the roughly
2700 liberty ships build during World War II, approximately 400 sustained
fractures, of which 90 were considered serious. In 20 ships the failure was
essentially total, and about half of these broke completely in two.

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Fracture Mechanics

Fracture Mechanics

After World War II, the fracture mechanics research group at the Naval
Research Laboratory was led by Dr. G.R. Irwin. Having studied the early
work of Inglis,
g , Griffith,, and others,, Irwin found out that the basic tools needed
to analyze fracture were already available. Irwin’s first major contribution was
to extend the Griffith approach to metals by including the energy dissipated
by local plastic flow.

In 1956, Irwin developed the energy release rate concept, which is related
to the Griffith theory but is in a form that is more useful for solving
engineering problems.

dΠ
G=− ≥R
dA

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Fracture Mechanics
Next, he used the Westergaard approach to show that the stresses and
displacements near the crack tip could be described by a single parameter
that was related to the energy release rate. This crack tip characterizing
parameter later became known as the stress intensity factor.

⎡1 − sin θ s in3θ ⎤
⎡σ x ⎤ θ ⎢ 2 2⎥
⎢ ⎥ cos
⎢ θ θ ⎥
⎢σ y ⎥ = Ko 2π r ⎢1 + sin 2 s in3 2 ⎥
2 Where Ko = σ π a
⎢⎣τ xy ⎥⎦ ⎢ sin θ cos 3θ ⎥
⎣ 2 2 ⎦

Fracture Mechanics

All this work was largely ignored by engineers as it seemed too mathematical
and it was only in the 1970's that fracture mechanics, as we now know it,
came to be accepted as a useful and even essential tool.
tool There were many
reasons for this, for example, the development of non-destructive
examination methods which revealed hidden cracks in structures and raised
the problem of what to do about them, the space industry which demanded
high-strength, high integrity pressure vessels, the increasing use of welding
and the severe duty experienced by offshore structures, etc. Hence, most of
the practical development of fracture mechanics has occurred in the last
thirty years.

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Fatigue
It has long been known that a component subjected to fluctuating stresses
may fail at stress levels much lower than its monotonic fracture strength, due
to a process called Fatigue. Fatigue is an insidious time-dependent type of
failure which can occur without any obvious warning. It is believed that more
th 95 percentt off allll mechanical
than h i l failures
f il can be
b attributed
tt ib t d to
t fatigue.
f ti Th
There
are normally three distinct stages in the fatigue failure of a component,
namely: Crack Initiation, Incremental Crack Growth, and the Final Fracture.

Fatigue
Classical Fatigue
The classical approach to fatigue, also referred to as Stress Controlled
Fatigue or High Cycle Fatigue (HCF), through S/N or Wöhler diagrams,
constitutes the basis of the SAFE LIFE p philosophy
p y in designg against
g
fatigue. In order to determine the strength of materials under the action of
fatigue loads, specimens with polished surfaces are subjected to repeated
or varying loads of specified magnitude while the stress reversals are
counted up to the destruction point. The number of the stress cycles to
failure can be approximated by the WOHLER or S-N DIAGRAM, a typical
example of which is given below.

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Fatigue
Low Cycle Fatigue
Based on the LCF local strain philosophy, fatigue cracks initiate as a
result of repeated plastic strain cycling at the locations of maximum strain
concentration.
concentration

Fatigue
Fatigue Crack Propagation
If a crack exists in the component
before it goes into service, for example
d
due t weld
to ld fabrication
f b i ti or from
f some
other cause, the ‘initiation’ stage is by-
passed and the fatigue failure process
is taken up entirely with incremental
growth and final fracture. Most fatigue
failures in practice are in the low stress
region, much less than the yield stress,
where the LEFM is likely to be valid.
Hence the LEFM principles can be
Hence,
applied to predict incremental fatigue
crack propagation.

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Creep
Creep can be defined as a time-dependent deformation of materials under
constant load (stress). The resulting progressive deformation and the final
rupture, can be considered as two distinct, yet related, modes of failure. For
metals, creep becomes important at relatively high temperatures, i.e.,
above 0.3 of their melting point in Kelvin scale. However, for polymers
substantial creep can occur at room temperature.

Creep
Creep Crack Growth
The two major parameters used for correlating creep crack growth data
are the stress intensity factor K and the integral C*. The time-dependent
gy Integral,
energy g , C* , is similar to the J-Integral,
g , but is written in terms of
strain rates instead of strain:
⎛ ∂u ⎞
C* = ∫ ⎜ wdy − σ ij n j i ds ⎟
Γ⎝
∂x ⎠

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Failure Analysis
One of the most significant applications of fracture mechanics is in the
process of Failure Analysis of components. Figure below shows the cracked
Girth-Gear of an industrial Ball-Mill. These gears are up to 12 meters in
diameter and over 90 tones in weight, with a manufacturing cost exceeding
$500 000 These
$500,000. Th t
types off gears are expected
t d to
t have
h f ti
fatigue li
lives off 20
years and more.

Failure Analysis
In this case history, within the first two years of operation, a few cracks
initiated from certain locations between the gussets and the gear flange, and
propagated towards the lightening holes, as shown in Fig. 15b. Since the
premature occurrence of several similar cracks in certain locations could be
i t
interpreted
t d as the
th possibility
ibilit off a faulty
f lt design,
d i it was decided
d id d to t perform
f a
complete stress analysis of the mill using the finite element method. The
analysis results clearly revealed the cause of failure, i.e., high stress built-up
in specific locations adjacent to the gear flange, and conformed to various
characteristics of the existing cracks, including their propagation paths. This
work also concerned the assessment of the remaining life of the gear
through modeling of crack growth in the high-stress region.
In these analyses, semi-elliptical cracks were modeled and grown through a
variable
i bl stress field,
fi ld and
d the
h crackk driving
di i f
forces were calculated.
l l d The Th
calculated crack growth rates were used to estimate the remaining life of the
gear. Such information is vitally important as it gives the mill operators a
timeframe to order a new gear and plan the replacement procedure.
Meanwhile they can safely operate the mill and save thousands of dollars
per working day.

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References

[1] Anderson, “Fracture Mechanics Fundamentals and Applications.”

[2] M
Meguid,
id “Engineering
“E i i F Fracture mechanics”
h i ”
[3] Kanninen, "Advanced Fracture Mechanics"
[4] Dowling, "Mechanical Behavior of Materials"
[5] “Structural Integrity Lecture Notes”, by Prof. Gray

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