Improving the structural integrity together with the performance (weight, time to failure,...) of structures requires a persisting effort in the field of mechanics of materials and structures. This can be achieved by a better understanding of the relationships between microscopic mechanisms and the macroscopic material behavior and structural response with respect to damage and fracture. This improvement strategy of materials, structures and assement methods can be described as local approach to fracture. The local approach to fracture is an active research field. Initially developped in the context of steel structures (pressure vessels), its application domain has become wider and now deals with various kinds of materials (metallic alloys, metal matrix composites, polymers, elastomers, concrete) as well as various physical deformation and damage mechanisms (plasticity, creep, fatigue, ductile fracture, brittle fracture, ...). This volume contains the proceedings on an international conference dedicated to these issues.
This book presents several aspects of the local approach to fracture: damage mechanisms, experimental techniques, damage evolution law and failure criteria, modelling of damage, and numerical simulation -- Back cover.
Local approaches to fatigue assessment are used to predict the structural durability of welded joints, to optimise their design and to evaluate unforeseen joint failures. This standard work provides a systematic survey of the principles and practical applications of the various methods. It covers the hot spot structural stress approach to fatigue in general, the notch stress and notch strain approach to crack initiation and the fracture mechanics approach to crack propagation. Seam-welded and spot-welded joints in structural steels and aluminium alloys are also considered.This completely reworked second edition takes into account the tremendous progress in understanding and applying local approaches which has been achieved in the last decade. It is a standard reference for designers, structural analysts and testing engineers who are responsible for the fatigue-resistant in-service behaviour of welded structures. - Completely reworked second edition of a standard work providing a systematic survey of the principles and practical applications of the various methods - Covers the hot spot structural stress approach to fatigue in general, the notch stress and notch strain approach to crack initiation and the fracture mechanics approach to crack propagation. - Written by a distinguished team of authors
This report assesses the current state of knowledge of the 'local approach' to cleavage fracture, reviews application to ferritic steels and their weldments and addresses limitations and disadvantages of the methodology.
Recent developments in engineering and technology have brought about serious and enlarged demands for reliability, safety and economy in wide range of fields such as aeronautics, nuclear engineering, civil and structural engineering, automotive and production industry. This, in turn, has caused more interest in continuum damage mechanics and its engineering applications. This book aims to give a concise overview of the current state of damage mechanics, and then to show the fascinating possibility of this promising branch of mechanics, and to provide researchers, engineers and graduate students with an intelligible and self-contained textbook. The book consists of two parts and an appendix. Part I is concerned with the foundation of continuum damage mechanics. Basic concepts of material damage and the mechanical representation of damage state of various kinds are described in Chapters 1 and 2. In Chapters 3-5, irreversible thermodynamics, thermodynamic constitutive theory and its application to the modeling of the constitutive and the evolution equations of damaged materials are descried as a systematic basis for the subsequent development throughout the book. Part II describes the application of the fundamental theories developed in Part I to typical damage and fracture problems encountered in various fields of the current engineering. Important engineering aspects of elastic-plastic or ductile damage, their damage mechanics modeling and their further refinement are first discussed in Chapter 6. Chapters 7 and 8 are concerned with the modeling of fatigue, creep, creep-fatigue and their engineering application. Damage mechanics modeling of complicated crack closure behavior in elastic-brittle and composite materials are discussed in Chapters 9 and 10. In Chapter 11, applicability of the local approach to fracture by means of damage mechanics and finite element method, and the ensuing mathematical and numerical problems are briefly discussed. A proper understanding of the subject matter requires knowledge of tensor algebra and tensor calculus. At the end of this book, therefore, the foundations of tensor analysis are presented in the Appendix, especially for readers with insufficient mathematical background, but with keen interest in this exciting field of mechanics.
This book presents recent advances related to the following two topics: how mechanical fields close to material or geometrical singularities such as cracks can be determined; how failure criteria can be established according to the singularity degrees related to these discontinuities. Concerning the determination of mechanical fields close to a crack tip, the first part of the book presents most of the traditional methods in order to classify them into two major categories. The first is based on the stress field, such as the Airy function, and the second resolves the problem from functions related to displacement fields. Following this, a new method based on the Hamiltonian system is presented in great detail. Local and energetic approaches to fracture are used in order to determine the fracture parameters such as stress intensity factor and energy release rate. The second part of the book describes methodologies to establish the critical fracture loads and the crack growth criteria. Singular fields for homogeneous and non-homogeneous problems near crack tips, v-notches, interfaces, etc. associated with the crack initiation and propagation laws in elastic and elastic-plastic media, allow us to determine the basis of failure criteria. Each phenomenon studied is dealt with according to its conceptual and theoretical modeling, to its use in the criteria of fracture resistance; and finally to its implementation in terms of feasibility and numerical application. Contents 1. Introduction. Part 1: Stress Field Analysis Close to the Crack Tip 2. Review of Continuum Mechanics and the Behavior Laws. 3. Overview of Fracture Mechanics. 4. Fracture Mechanics. 5. Introduction to the Finite Element Analysis of Cracked Structures. Part 2: Crack Growth Criteria 6. Crack Propagation. 7. Crack Growth Prediction in Elements of Steel Structures Submitted to Fatigue. 8. Potential Use of Crack Propagation Laws in Fatigue Life Design.
From a leading expert in fracture mechanics, this text provides new approaches and new applications to advance the understanding of crack formation and propagation.
This volume not only covers the fundamental concepts of fracture mechanics, but also the computational methodologies necessary for practical engineering designs aimed at fracture control. It gives a concise summary of various fracture theories: linear elastic, elastic-plastic, and dynamic fracture mechanics of metals and composites. Novel numerical methods (finite element and boundary element) that enable the treatment of complicated engineering problems are emphasized. Examined are problems of linear elastic fracture of metallic and non-metallic composite materials, three-dimensional problems of surface flaws, elastic-plastic fracture, stable crack growth, and dynamic crack propagation. A comprehensive outline of the energetic approach and energy integrals on fracture mechanics is also given. Contents: Preface. Parts: I. Chapters: 1. Fracture: Mechanics or Art? (F. Erdogan). II. 2. Linear Elastic Fracture Mechanics (A.S. Kobayashi). 3. Elastic-Plastic Fracture (Quasi-Static) (S.N. Atluri and A.S. Kobayashi). 4. Dynamic Crack Propagation in Solids (L.B. Freund). 5. Energetic Approaches and Path-Independent Integrals in Fracture Mechanics (S.N. Atluri). III. 6.
As Directors of this NATO Workshop, we welcome this opportunity to record formally our thanks to the NATO Scientific Affairs Division for making our meeting possible through generous financial support and encouragement. This meeting has two purposes: the first obvious one because we have collected scientists from East, far East and west to discuss new development in the field of fracture mechanics: the notch fracture mechanics. The second is less obvious but perhaps in longer term more important that is the building of bridges between scientists in the frame of a network called Without Walls Institute on Notch Effects in Fatigue and Fracture". Physical perception of notch effects is not so easy to understand as the presence of a geometrical discontinuity as a worst effect than the simple reduction of cross section. Notch effects in fatigue and fracture is characterised by the following fundamental fact: it is not the maximum local stress or stress which governs the phenomena of fatigue and fracture. The physic shows that a process volume is needed probably to store the necessary energy for starting and propagating the phenomenon. This is a rupture of the traditional "strength of material" school which always give the prior importance of the local maximum stress. This concept of process volume was strongly affirmed during this workshop.
