STRESS ANALYSIS OF CRACK IN STRUCTURES (FRACTURE MECHANICS)

Engineers are more often remembered for famous failures than successes!!

ABSTRACT
Fracture mechanics approaches require that an initial crack size be assumed. In any material the components with crystallographic defects and imperfections may be occur such as welding porosities, inclusions and casting defects etc. alternatively, for an estimate of the total fatigue life of a defect-free material, fracture mechanics approaches can be used to determine propagation. Fracture mechanics technology provides a modern, systems-type, engineering approach for dealing with all of the factors involved in structural reliability. The relationships between material properties, stresses, defects, nondestructive inspection, fabrication, and structural performance requirements can be analyzed and their combined effect on structural integrity can be determined. The philosophy and general approaches for applying the technology are described. Emphasis is devoted to illustrating the vital role of nondestructive inspection in the utilization of fracture mechanics technology, and the need for quantitative nondestructive measurements is described .

INTRODUCTION ON FRACTURE MECHANICS: It is a method for predicting failure of a structure containing a crack. It uses methods of analytical and experimental to calculate the driving force on a crack and to characterize the materials resistance to fracture. Fracture mechanics approaches require that an initial crack size be known or assumed. For components with imperfections or defects such as welding porosities, inclusions and casting defects, etc. an initial crack size may be known. In modern materials science, fracture

mechanics is an important tool in improving the mechanical performance of materials and components. It applies the physics of stress and strain, in particular the theories of elasticity and plasticity, to the microscopic crystallographic defects found in real materials in order to predict the macroscopic mechanical failure of bodies From investigating fallen structures, engineers found that most failure began with cracks. These cracks may be caused by material defects (dislocation, impurities...), discontinuities in assembly and/or design (sharp corners, grooves, nicks, voids...), harsh environments (thermal stress, corrosion...) and damages in service (impact, fatigue, unexpected loads...). Most microscopic cracks are arrested inside the Tay Rail Bridge

West of the bridge looking south from Dundee Carries Crosses Locale Total length Beginning date of construction Completion date Opening date Destruction date Coordinates Rail traffic Firth of Tay Dundee to Wormit 3264 m July 22, 1871 (1st) July 6, 1883 (2nd) early 1878 (1st) 1887 (2nd) June 1, 1878 (1st) July 13, 1887 (2nd) December 28, 1879 (1st) 56.43872 N 2.988486 W

material but it takes one run-away crack to destroy the whole structure. The NEED for fracture mechanics: Failure of engineering structures through fracture can be fatal; one example is that of the TAY RAIL BRIDGE disaster. Often disasters occur because engineering structures contain cracks - arising either during production or during service. For instance, growth of cracks in pressure vessels due to crack propagation could cause a

fatal explosion. If failure were ever to happen, we would rather it were by Yield or by leak before break.

The Tay Bridge Disaster:

Investigators quickly determined many faults in design, materials, and processes that had contributed to the failure. No allowance for wind load had been made by Bouch: he had been advised that this was unnecessary for girders shorter than 200ft, and had not followed this up for his new design with longer girders. The section in the middle of the bridge, where the rail ran inside high girders, rather than on top of lower deck trusses, to allow a sea lane below high enough for the masts of ships) was potentially top heavy and very vulnerable to high winds. Neither Bouch nor the contractor appeared to have regularly visited the on-site foundry where iron from the previous half-built bridge was recycled. The cylindrical cast Iron columns supporting the 13 longest spans of the bridge, each 245 ft (75 m) long, were of poor quality. Formation of crack due to fatigue: Fatigue in engineering components and

materials refers to the initiation and development of cracks in the component, as a result of cyclic loads, each one of which is well below the materials plastic limit. Despite popular misconceptions, fatigue has nothing to do with a material getting old or crystalline or going off in any way fatigue is simply concerned with crack development.

Fatigue is dangerous as it is often insidious in nature in that it is often manifested by catastrophic failure. Fracture Mechanics provides exactly fitness for purpose, that means a quantitative relationship, between material, design and fabrication, or more simply between stress, flaw size and toughness. This interrelationship is best represented in terms of a so called Triangle of Integrity.
Applied Stress

Fracture Toughness

Flaw Size

Initiation and Propagation stages: The fatigue life of a component is made up of initiation and propagation stages. This is illustrated schematically as shown in figure The size of the crack at the transition from initiation to propagation is usually unknown and often depends on the point of view of the analyst and the size of the component being analyzed. For example, for a researcher equipped with microscopic equipment it may be on the order of a crystal imperfection, dislocation, or a 0,1 mm-crack, while to the inspector in the field it may be the smallest crack that is readily detectable with nondestructive inspection equipment Nevertheless, the distinction between the initiation life and propagation life is important. At low strain amplitudes up to 90% of the life may be taken up with

initiation, while at high amplitudes the majority of the fatigue life may be spent propagating a crack. Fracture mechanics approaches are used to estimate the propagation life. Fracture mechanics approaches require that an initial crack size be known or assumed. For components with imperfections or defects (such as welding porosities, inclusions and casting defects, etc.) an initial crack size may be known. Alternatively, for an estimate of the total fatigue life of a defect-free material, fracture mechanics approaches can be used to determine propagation. Strain-life approaches may then be used to determine initiation life, with the total life being the sum of these two estimates. HISTORICAL OVERVIEW: To analyze the relationship among stresses, cracks, and fracture toughness, Fracture Mechanics was introduced. The first milestone was set by Griffith in his famous 1920 paper that quantitatively relates the flaw size to the fracture stresses. However, Griffith's approach is too primitive for engineering applications and is only good for brittle materials.

Griffith Crack Theory: A balance must be struck between the decrease in potential energy and the increase in surface energy resulting form the presence of a crack. The surface energy arises from the fact that there is a non-equilibrium configuration of nearest neighbor atoms at any surface in a solid.

There exists an energy balance between strain energy released as the crack

extends (negative): and energy absorbed as crack grows:

due to creation of new surface. Instability occurs when dU/da = 0 and the crack will always grow. Griffith Theory:

plane stress:

plane strain: The above is derived for an elastic material containing a very sharp crack. There's a need to incorporate an extra term due to difference in fracture energy and surface energy for metals and polymers. Irwin used the energy source term and denoting dU/da as G:

At the point of instability the elastic energy release rate G (the crack driving force) reaches a critical value and fracture occurs.

Stress Analysis of Cracks: Here we'll discuss a version of fracture

mechanics which can be applied to large concrete structures, like dams. Irwin's modified Griffith crack theory: Griffiths work was ignored for over twenty years until a group under G.R.Irwin at the U.S.Naval Research laboratory (NRL) took it up during World war II. Irwin and his colleagues developed a modified form of Griffiths approach; they

Reformulated it in terms of stress,rather than energy. Their work resulted in a new materials property, fracture toughness, which is denoted Kic, and is now universally accepted as the defining property of fracture mechanics. Fracture toughness: Modes: These forces are simplified into three different "modes", basically three ways the forces can act and what kind of fracture they cause:

Mode I: the forces are perpendicular to the crack (the crack is horizontal and the forces are vertical), pulling the crack open. This is referred to as the opening mode. Mode II: the forces are parallel to the crack. One force is pushing the top half of the crack back and the other is pulling the bottom half of the crack forward, both along the same line. This creates a shear crack: the crack is sliding along itself. It is called in-plane shear because the forces are not causing the material to move out of its original plane. .

Mode III: the forces are perpendicular to the crack. This causes the material to separate and slide along itself, moving out of its original plane. The forces could also be pushing left and right and the same effect would occur. But the forces have to be moving in opposite directions in order to grow the crack.

Stress concentration factor:

Crack tip stress:

Fracture vs Strength criteria

Pipe line unstable crack growth

The above shown in pictures is related to various stresses ,fractures and stresses acting in cracks etc. Fracture mechanics-objectivities: Calculate safe load for a structure in the presence of a known defect. For a given load, determine safe defect size or prescribe quality control level. For a design load and defect size, select a material. Determine safe operating life before a defect grows and results in a catastrophic failure.

APPLICATIONS: The following information is needed for a fracture mechanics prediction of failure: Size, shape, location and orientation of crack. Residual stresses and applied load. Size and shape of the part. Remaining life as a function of crack size. Fracture mechanics technology provides a modern, systems-type, engineering approach for dealing with all of the factors involved in structural reliability. CONCLUSION: Cracks are everywhere, it is just a matter of how large Fracture design criteria are required more often in modern design. More efficient designs with lower factors of safety drive this trend

REFERENCES: ASTM E399-83,STANDARD

TEST METHOD FOR PLANE-STRAIN

FRACTURE TOUGHNES OF METALLIC MATERIALS.,

philadelphia.

Journal of engineering material and technology http://www.key-to-steel.com/Articles/Art45.htm http://simscience.org/cracks/advanced/mintro.html