On the influence of microstructure on crack propagation mechanisms and fracture toughness of metallic materials

A survey is given on the effect of microstructure on crack propagation mechanisms and fracture toughness.

The influence of inclusions and of the material's matrix are treated separately. An attempt was made to correlate some simple, but typical microstructures with corresponding crack propagation mechanisms and to establish a qualitative sequence of these microstructures with respect to their effect on K_IC. Because of the lack of sufficient experimental evidence this attempt is necessarily incomplete.

Finally, some K_IC-calculations are compared with measured values.