Fracture, Fatigue and Degradation

Georges Chahni
With figures from David Collins’ slides

December 2021

Contents
1 Stress and Strain 2
1.1 Engineering Stress-Strain Relations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.2 Shear Stress-Strain Relations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.3 Stress Matrices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.4 Mohrs Circle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

2 Failure Criterion 4
2.1 The Tresca Criterion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.2 Von-Mises Yield Criterion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

3 Eigenvalue approach to Principal Stresses 5

4 Deviatoric, Hydrostatic and Plane Stresses 5

4.1 Hydrostatic Stress . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
4.2 Deviatoric Stress . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
4.3 Plane Stress . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

5 Strain - Enhanced 6
5.1 Tensors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
5.1.1 Engineering strains . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
5.1.2 Relating Tensor Strain to Stress . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

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1 Stress and Strain
1.1 Engineering Stress-Strain Relations
The Fundamental Stress equations are:

F orce
Engineering stress : δ =
Area
∆L
Engineering Strain : ε =
L0
Combining the two equations we get:

δ
Y oungs M odulus : E =
ε
There are also other Moduli such as the shear and bulk modulus but these
will not be too relevant.

The bulk modulus is relevant to stress due to hydrostatic pressure.

dP
Bulk M odulus : K = V (1)
dV

1.2 Shear Stress-Strain Relations

The shear modulus occurs in systems under shear stress and shear strain
which are:
F orce
Shear stress : τxy = (2)
Area

Shear Strain : ε = ∆L0M ax (3)

The Modulus is then:
τxy
Shear M odulus : G = (4)
γxy

1.3 Stress Matrices

For a 3-D Stress state that is in equilibrium, it is useful to represent it
with a stress matrix:
 
σxx τxy τxz
σ =  τxy σxx τyz  (5)
τxz τyz σzz

2
 Figure 1: 3-D Stress State

We can rotate this matrix by performing the following operation:

 
cosθ −sinθ 0
σ ′ = RσRT where R = sinθ cosθ 0 (6)
0 0 1

1.4 Mohrs Circle

Mohrs Circle for stress is usually plotted for Shear vs Uniaxial stresses (y
and x respectively,) and you can generally just plot two points, connect
them and draw a circle around them. The radius and angle can be found
using basic geometry which are left as an exercise to the 4th grader and the
equation is one of a typical circle, shown above.
When a stress state is rotated by θ the corresponding mohrs circle is rotated
by double that.
The stresses when shear is 0 are called the ”Principal Stresses” and will
come in useful in the later sections.
NOTE: Clockwise is the positive sense when evaluating shear stresses.

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 Figure 2: Mohrs Circle for a Stress State

2 Failure Criterion
It is useful to be able to formulate criterions under which we can theoret-
ically evaluate whether or not a material has plastically deformed/yielded,
and two common ones are the Tresca and Von-Mises Yield Criteria. These
criteria account for a combination of shear and uniaxial stresses.

2.1 The Tresca Criterion

This criterion is the more conservative of the two, and simply says that
failure occurs when the Mohrs Circle diameter = Yield Stress. This can be
attained by varying between stress and shear by changing the angle within
the mohrs circle.
Tresca basically tells us that maximum shear τ = σy /2. At yield σy = σ1 −σ
2
2

where the two are the principle stresses.

2.2 Von-Mises Yield Criterion

The Von-Mises criterion is used in FEA and so for simulations quite ex-
tensively but it slightly less conservative as Tresca, meaning an appropriate
safety factor should probably be used when taking VM into consideration.

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 √
It tells us that the maximum shear would be equal to σy 3.

3 Eigenvalue approach to Principal Stresses

The Principal stresses for a given stress state can be evaluated using the
following approach when given a stress state:

Solving for the above values of λ gives you the principle stresses, but of
course you can keep doing the mohrs circle stuff.

4 Deviatoric, Hydrostatic and Plane Stresses

4.1 Hydrostatic Stress
It is interesting to look at the Mohrs circle due to hydrostatic stress. As
stress is normal to the surface at every point and uniform throughout
 by defi- 
σHyd 0 0
nition, the mohrs circle is simply a point and the stress state is  0 σHyd 0 .
0 0 σHyd
Under hydrostatic stress there is no plasticity due to the lack of shear stresses
and so dislocations cannot move.
1
P ressure = − (σ11 + σ22 + σ33 ) = −σy
3

4.2 Deviatoric Stress

Stress states are separable into sections that change the shape of an object
and ones that change the volume(σhyd . Subtracting a stress matrix by its
hydrostatic stress leaves us with the component that changes the shape a.k.a.
Deviatoric Stress.
This stress involves plastic deformation and conservation of volume.

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4.3 Plane Stress
This form of stress behaviour simply means stress is only exhibited in one
plane e.g.
   
σ11 0 0 0 0 0
 0 σ22 0 or 0 σ22 0  (7)
0 0 0 0 0 σ33

5 Strain - Enhanced
So far we’ve defined normal strain quite well, but we must also take into
account tensor/shear strain. To evaluate tensor strains we’ll have to slightly
redefine terms like engineering strain as I will show,

5.1 Tensors
5.1.1 Engineering strains
σ ∆L
We had previously defined engineering strain as ϵ = = but this
E L
definition will not cut it. In fact we will now call engineering strain e and
define it as
∂u
∆L dx + dx − dx ∂u
ex = = ∂x =
L dx ∂x
.
For the following figure the above equation applies where ∂u is the change
in displacement(u):

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 ∂ui
We can say eij = where x = (x1 , x2 , x3 ), U = (U1 , U2 , U3 )
∂xj
Note: x1 , x2 , x3 and (x, y, z) are interchangeable.
Normal strains don’t change much and are then defined as:

∂u
exx = ,
∂x
∂u
eyy = , (8)
∂y
∂u
ezz =
∂z
Shear strains are then defined a bit oddly from the below figure:

BB ′ ∂u
exy = =
AB ∂y
′
(9)
DD ∂v
eyx = =
AD ∂x
Tensor strains will steal the previous namesake of engineering strain and
will now be named ϵ, and defined as:

εxx = exx ,
εyy = eyy , (10)
εzz = ezz

Shear strains take a more complex form:

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 We can use this to define tensor strain as the average of symmetric
engineering strains in the form:
1
εij = (eij + eji ) ,
2 (11)
1
wij = (eij − eji )
2
εxy = 0 for case 1 and ωij = 0 for case 2. The next leap is to notice that

e=ε+ω

Applying the above to the following figure gives us an interesting result:

1 1
Some quick maths gives: εxy = (exy + eyx ) = (γ + 0); and we come
2 2
up with the following Rule: Tensor strain must be half of engineering strain:

Engineering Shear strain : 2εxy = γxy (12)

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 We can now define tensor strain using the above as the following matrix:

    
 ∂u 1 ∂u ∂V 1 ∂u ∂w 
 + +
εxz    ∂x 2 ∂y ∂x 2 ∂z ∂x 
  
εxx εxy 
 1 ∂u ∂v ∂v 1 ∂V ∂W 
εij = εyx εyy εyz  =  + +
εzx εzy 2 ∂y ∂x ∂y 2 ∂z ∂y 
εzz   1  ∂u ∂w  
1 ∂v ∂w

∂w 
 2 ∂z + ∂x +
 
2 ∂z ∂y ∂z 
(13)

5.1.2 Relating Tensor Strain to Stress

For an isotropic material we can say that:
1
εx = [σx − v (σy + σz )]
E
1
εy = [σy − v (σx + σz )] (14)
E
1
εz = [σz − v (σx + σy )]
E
and
τxy τyz τxz
γxy = ; γyz = ; γxz = (15)
G G G
Looking back at the normal components:

1 − 2ν
εx + εy + ε z = (σx + σy + σz ) (16)
E
Substituting one of the equations in equation set (10) into equation 12
gives the following result:

E vE
σxx = εxx + (εxx + εyy + εzz ) (17)
1+v (1 + v) (1 − 2v)
which can generalised as

E vE
σij = εij + ϵkk δij (18)
1+v (1 + v) (1 − 2v)

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 where:

(
1 if i = j (Only N ormal)
εkk = (εxx + εyy + εzz ) and δij = (19)
̸ j (Only Shear)
0 if i =

This can be further simplified by setting the following:

vE
Lame′ s Constant : λ = (20)
(1 + v) (1 − 2v)

and noticing
E
2G = (21)
1−v
We can now define Hookes law as:

σij = 2Gεij + λεkk δij (22)

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