One of the most critical capabilities of realistic hydraulic fracture simulation is the prediction of complex (turning, bifurcating, or merging) fracture paths. In most classical models, complex fracture simulation is difficult due to the need for a priori knowledge of propagation path and initiation points and the complexity associated with stress singularities at fracture tips. In this study,...

The present study investigated the local arrestability of intergranular crack in high-strength martensitic steel through multi-scale three-dimensional (3D) analysis using X-ray computed tomography and focused ion beam machining (FIB)-scanning electron microscopy (SEM) serial sectioning combined with backscattering diffraction (3D EBSD). Macroscopic demonstrated discontinuous propagation cracks,...

The purpose of this paper is to fill the gap between the classical treatment of brittle fracture mechanics and the new idea of considering the crack evolution as a free discontinuity problem. Griffith and Irwin crite-rions of crack propagation are studied and transformed in order to be no longer dependent on any prescription of the geometry of the crack during its evolution. The inequality cont...

It is shown that the physical mechanism of thermally activated subcritical crack growth is always a stochastic process and leads, therefore, to probabilistic crack propagation. This process is the result of the random breaking of atomic bonds and has to be clearly distinguished f rom the well known Weibull distribution. A Markov chain analysis leads to the normal distribution of crack sizes. Th...

present work shows the numerical determination of fatigue crack opening and closure stress intensity factors of a C(T) specimen under variable amplitude loading using a finite element method. A half compact tension C(T) specimen, assuming plane stress constraint was used by finite element method covering the effects in two-dimensional (2D) small scale yielding models of fatigue crack growth und...

The properties of graphene open new opportunities for the fabrication of composites exhibiting unique structural and functional capabilities. However, to achieve this goal we should build materials with carefully designed architectures. Here, we describe the fabrication of ceramic-graphene composites by combining graphene foams with pre-ceramic polymers and spark plasma sintering. The result is...

We examine the fracture mechanics of tearing graphene. We present a molecular dynamics simulation of the propagation of cracks in clamped, free-standing graphene as a function of the out-of-plane force. The geometry is motivated by experimental configurations that expose graphene sheets to out-of-plane forces, such as back-gate voltage. We establish the geometry and basic energetics of failure ...

numerical methods such as boundary element and finite element methods are widely used for the stress analysis in solid mechanics. this study presents boundary element method based on the displacement discontinuity formulation to solve general problems of interaction between hydraulic fracturing and discontinuities. the crack tip element and a higher order boundary displacement collocation techn...

The thesis presents a combined experimental and computational investigation of a novel thermochemical material removal mechanism for cutting of polycrystalline cubic boron nitride (PCBN) substrates through controlled crack propagation. The CO2-Laser/Waterjet machining system developed by the Iowa State University’s Laboratory for Lasers, MEMS, and Nanotechnology was utilized to achieve specimen...

Two levels of fidelity are used for minimum weight design of a composite bladestiffened panel subject to crack propagation constraints. The low fidelity approach makes use of an equivalent strain constraint calculated by a closed form solution for the stress intensity factor. The high fidelity approach uses the stress intensity factor directly as the constraint and computes it from the stress d...