A major part of fracture mechanics is concerned with studying the initiation and propagation of fatigue cracks. This typically requires constant monitoring of crack growth during fatigue cycles and the knowledge of the precise location of the crack tip at any given time. One technique currently available for measuring fatigue crack length is the Potential Drop method[1]. The method, however, ma...

A major part of fracture mechanics is concerned with studying the initiation and propagation of fatigue cracks. This typically requires constant monitoring of crack growth during fatigue cycles which necessitates automation of the whole process. If the rate of crack growth can be determined the experimenter can vary externally controlled parameters such as load level, load cycle frequency and s...

A new plasticity criterion for mixed mode crack initiation angles under compression is presented, based on the characteristics of the plastic core region surrounding the crack tip with crack surface friction. The shape and size of the plastic core region were thoroughly analyzed under compression and the non-dimensional variable radius of the plastic core region for mixed mode compressive fract...

A crack initiation and propagation algorithm driven by non-local ductile damage is proposed in a three-dimensional finite strain framework. The evolution of plastic strain and stress triaxiality govern a non-local ductile damage field via constitutive equations. When the damage reaches a critical threshold, a discontinuity in the form of a crack surface is inserted into the three-dimensional co...

A computational approach to the optimization of service properties of two-phase materials (in this case, fracture resistance of tool steels) by varying their microstructure is developed. The main points of the optimization of steels are as follows: (1) numerical simulation of crack initiation and growth in real microstructures of materials with the use of the multiphase finite elements (MPFE) a...

The phase field method integrates the Griffith theory and damage mechanics approach to predict crack initiation, propagation, and branching within one framework. No crack tracking topology is needed, and complex crack shapes can be captures without user intervention. In this paper, a detailed description of how the phase field method is implemented with explicit dynamics into LS-DYNA is provide...

Mechanism of fatigue crack initiation was investigated in ultrafine-grained (UFG) magnesium alloy AZ91 processed by equal channel angular pressing (ECAP). Fatigue behaviour of UFG material was compared to the behaviour of material in an initial as-cast state. Focused ion beam technique (FIB) was applied to reveal the surface relief and early fatigue cracks. Two substantially different mechanism...

We analyze the initiation and propagation of a crack from a point on the surface of a circular notch-tip in an impact loaded prenotched plate. The material of the plate is assumed to exhibit strain hardening, strain-rate hardening, and softening due to the rise in temperature and porosity. The degradation of material parameters due to the evolution of damage in the form of porosity is considere...