Dissemination of IT for the Promotion of Materials Science (DoITPoMS)

DoITPoMS Teaching & Learning Packages Brittle Fracture Finite Element simulation of a sharp crack
Brittle Fracture AimsBefore you startIntroductionWhen do atomic bonds break?Why do cracks weaken a material?Inglis and the crack tip stress ideaCan we calculate the energy changes?What about tension?Another way of expressing the energiesAnother way of calculating the energiesWhy bother if they are the same?Coping with a scatter in strengthSimulation of Weibull modulus experimentWhen does the sample fail completely?Sub-critical crack growth and R-curvesSummaryQuestionsGoing further
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Finite Element simulation of a sharp crack

A Finite Element simulation was carried out on the same loading setup as the polycarbonate studied previously. A sharp crack was used, i.e. an infinitely small crack tip radius.

The stress perpendicular to the crack plane, σ11, decreases with distance from the crack tip:

A graph of stress vs distance from crack tip, in a perpendicular direction to the applied stress

This curve can be fitted closely to a r−1/2 curve, showing that our prediction for the stresses ahead of a crack tip is accurate.

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