Enamel is the hardest tissue in the human body covering the crowns of teeth. Whereas the underlying dental material dentin is very well characterized in terms of mechanical and fracture properties, available data for enamel are quite limited and are apart from the most recent investigation mainly based on indentation studies. Within the current study, stable crack-growth experiments in bovine e...

Improving the design and performance of medical stents for implantation in the human body is of current interest. This paper describes a study of fatigue-crack propagation behavior in the superelastic alloy Nitinol. Specifically, the objective of this work was to study the effect of environment on cyclic crack-growth resistance in an approximately 50Ni-50Ti (atom %) alloy and to provide the nec...

Abstract In their temperature window of application, TiAl alloys typically fail in a semi-brittle manner. For this material class, the Griffith concept, developed initially for ideal brittle materials, has to be adapted by additional dissipative contributions fracture resistance: plastic deformation, crack bridging, work deform and shear ledges, bifurcation. These terms resistance induce pronou...

We consider a brittle fracture taking account of self-equilibrated distributed microstresses. To determine how the latter can affect the crack equilibrium and growth, a model of a structured linearly elastic body is introduced consisting of two equal symmetrically arranged layers (or half-planes) connected by an interface as a prospective crack path. The interface is comprised of a discrete set...

With only 1% protein by weight, tooth enamel is the most highly mineralized tissue in mammals. The focus of this study was to evaluate contributions of the proteins on the fracture resistance of this unique structural material. Sections of enamel were obtained from the cusps of human molars and the crack growth resistance was quantified using a conventional fracture mechanics approach with comp...

We consider an infinite square-cell lattice of elastic beams with a semi-infinite crack. Symmetric and antisymmetric bending modes of fracture under remote loads are examined. The related long-wave asymptotes corresponding to a continuous anisotropic bending plate are also considered. In the latter model, the symmetric mode is characterized by the square-root type singularity, whereas the antis...

ÐTransient cyclic fatigue-crack growth behavior following variable-amplitude loading sequences has been investigated in a hot-pressed, monolithic Si3N4 ceramic (NTK EC-141), for which fracture toughness (resistance-curve) and cyclic fatigue properties are well characterized. Following rapid changes in the applied stress-intensity range, DK, during both low-high and high-low block-loading sequen...

A major drawback in using bulk metallic glasses (BMGs) as structural materials is their extremely poor fatigue performance. One way to alleviate this problem is through the composite route, in which second phases are introduced into the glass to arrest crack growth. In this paper, the fatigue crack growth behavior of in situ reinforced BMGs with crystalline dendrites, which are tailored to impa...

Interfacial fracture toughness and cyclic fatigue-crack growth properties of joints made from 99.5% pure alumina partially transient liquid-phase bonded using copper/niobium/copper interlayers have been investigated at both room and elevated temperatures, and assessed in terms of interfacial chemistry and microstructure. The mean interfacial fracture toughness, Gc, was found to decrease from 39...