Fatigue crack growth is a complex process that involves interactions between many elements ranging across several length scales. This work provides an in-depth, experimental study of fatigue crack growth and the relationships between four of these elements: strain field, microstructure, crack path, and crack growth rate. Multiple data sets were acquired for fatigue crack growth in a nickel-base...

Crack path selection in mixed mode fracture tests of adhesive bonds, including those with locally weakened interfaces Adhesives offer many advantages over discrete mechanical fasteners such as bolts and rivets. By eliminating the holes or other mechanical fasteners, components may often be made thinner that will save weight, time, and costs. Because adhesives are often applied continuously and ...

Prediction of the properties of products of the blanking process is nowadays still mainly an empirical effort. The lack of fundamental knowledge of the process may cause lengthy process development, and obstructs process innovation. Consequently, a validated numerical model of the process would be of great value. In this paper, an elasto-plastic ®nite element model will be introduced, in which ...

The paper presents the development of a visualization algorithm for cracks propagating in mono-dispersed particulate media. The algorithm is based on local Voronoi decompositions generated according to the lattice topology employed in parallel computations of the discrete element method. The developed algorithm is implemented in the distributed visualization software VisPartDEM. Crack propagati...

Fracture in quasistatically driven systems is studied by means of a discrete spring-block model. Developed from close comparison with desiccation experiments, it describes crack formation induced by friction on a substrate. The model produces cellular, hierarchical patterns of cracks, characterized by a mean fragment size linear in the layer thickness, in agreement with experiments. The selecti...

A discrete constitutive equation for modeling material failure as a decohesion or separation of material to form two free surfaces is a relatively simple approach. However, numerical simulations based on such a model involve considerable complexity including remeshing if the finite element approach is used. Here, a basic formulation involving the simultaneous application of the continuum and de...

In this paper an analytical crack propagation scenario is proposed which assumes that a crack propagates in the tooth root in both the crack depth direction and the tooth width direction, and which is more reasonable and realistic for non-uniform load distribution cases than the other presented scenarios. An analytical approach is used for quantifying the loss of time-varying gear mesh stiffnes...

Crack tip shielding phenomena, whereby the "effective crack-driving force" actually experienced at the crack tip is locally reduced, are examined with reference to fatigue crack propagation behavior in metals, composites and ceramics. Sources of shielding are briefly described in terms of mechanisms relying on the production of elastically constrained zones which envelop the crack (zone shieldi...

* Corresponding author; Email: [email protected] ABSTRACT An important task in mixed-mode fracture analysis and prediction is the simulation of crack growth under mixed-mode conditions. To complete such a task, one must have (a) a computer code capable of handling the kinematics of general crack growth and determining the stress and deformation states during crack growth, and (b) a fracture crit...

A Zener±Stroh crack is formed by coalescing a dislocation pileup and therefore is a net dislocation loaded crack. In this paper, the interaction between a Zener±Stroch crack and surrounding cylindrical ®bers in a ®ber-reinforced composite material has been investigated. The crack is located in the matrix and near a ®ber, while the in ̄uence of other ®bers on the crack is considered through the t...