Hot compression and fracture toughness of HSS composed hot strip work rolls

The rolls in the finishing stands must have good resistance to both wear and fire cracks. The use of high-speed steel at the finishing stands has shown satisfactory results. The composition of this high-alloyed steel is an important parameter as the most significant change lays on the type, morphology, and volume fraction of the eutectics carbides. The heat treatment of these products consists of high temperature austenization followed by quenching and two temperings, as required in order to increase their overall hardness and to completely eliminate residual austenite. The influence of tempering temperatures on the mechanical properties of these products, determined using tensile, hot compression and fracture toughness tests, was studied in this research work. Their corresponding failure micromechanisms were defined by means of the analysis of fracture surfaces.     

Investigation of failure behavior of two different types of Zircaloy clad tubes used as nuclear reactor fuel pins

Nuclear reactor fuel pins act as barriers to the release of radioactive fission products to the coolant flowing around these thin-walled tubes and hence they prevent the leakage of radioactivity to the surroundings of reactor core. These tubes are of small thickness in order to have less resistance in the path of heat flow from the fuel to the coolant. Investigation of failure behavior of these fuel clad tubes is of utmost importance to the designers and plant operators in order to ensure the maximum residence time of the fuel bundles inside the reactor core as well as to ensure minimal activity during operation and refueling activities. Various types of zirconium based alloys are used to manufacture these pins. The focus is to obtain better strength, ductility, corrosion resistance, oxidation resistance, and minimal creep including those due to irradiation-assisted damage and deformation processes. Two number of such types of alloys, namely, re-crystallization annealed Zircaloy-2 and stress-relief annealed Zircaloy-4, have been investigated in this work for their fracture behavior. As standard fracture mechanics specimens cannot be machined from these thin-walled tubes, non-standard specimens with axial cracks have been used in this work. Load normalization technique has been used to evaluate crack growth during loading of these specimens. It was observed that the re-crystallization annealed Zircaloy-2 specimens have higher initiation fracture toughness as well as higher resistance to crack growth compared to the other type of specimens. In order to understand the micro-structural aspects of the fracture resistance behavior of these materials, further investigation incorporating optical and transmission electron microscopy have also been carried out. It was concluded that the higher fracture resistance behavior of the re-crystallization annealed Zircaloy-2 specimens can be attributed to the presence of finer grain and sub-grain micro-structure, very low dislocation density and other defects in the material.     

氧化石墨烯增强水泥复合材料的断裂性能

将氧化石墨烯(GO)加入水泥砂浆中,以提高其抗裂性和韧性。通过三点弯曲梁法测试了GO增强水泥砂浆试件的断裂性能,采用双K断裂模型分析了GO掺量对改性水泥砂浆断裂参数的影响。结果表明:GO提高了水泥砂浆试件的起裂韧度,当GO掺量（与胶凝材料质量比）为0.01%~0.07%时,较对照组分别提高了13.4%、25.4%、24.6%和16.7%,但对失稳韧度的影响有限,不同GO掺量水泥砂浆的断裂能较对照组提高了10.7%~33.3%。结合微观试验发现,GO主要通过影响水泥水化过程,优化孔结构,促进高密度水化产物生成,提高水化产物间的粘结力,进而抑制微裂缝生成和发展。      

Parametric and mechanical characterization of linear low density polyethylene (LLDPE) using rotational moulding technology

In this research work, extensive literature review of the rotational moulding process using linear low density polythene (LLDPE) has been carried out to summarize the present status of the characterization in order to maintain quality and reliability of the products. The present characterization of rotomoulded products using LLDPE is based on the mechanical properties which are being altered by changing process parameters. However, it is observed that in the majority of applications of the products made of LLDPE using rotational moulding technology are prone to cracking failure due to manufacturing defects at room temperature. Therefore, study of fracture characterization of the material is equally important in relation to quality and reliability. In this article, the present characterization of the rotational moulded products using different polymers is summarized in the form of review and the importance of evaluation of the fracture behaviour of rotomoulded products is emphasized.     

Interface controlled active fracture modes in glass-ceramics

The active fracture modes in glass-ceramics, produced by controlled crystallization from three starting vitreous products containing PbO and SiO₂, were studied and compared. The goal was to examine the active fracture modes in PbO-rich glass-ceramic materials, where the main glass former was PbO, and compare these results with those reported in the literature, where the main glass former was SiO₂. The influence of composition, shape and mean size of the ceramic phase on the active fracture modes of the glass-ceramics was also examined. It was observed that the microhardness and fracture toughness of the starting vitreous products decrease with increasing PbO content. Increase in the relative amount of SiO₂ resulted in a decrease of the percentage of the ceramic phase. Glass-ceramics with higher PbO content showed typical behaviour of high toughness material, i.e. intergranular fracture mode, with lower microhardness value. Glass-ceramics with lower PbO content showed typical behaviour of high-strength material, i.e. transgranular fracture mode, with higher microhardness value.     

Experimental and finite element analysis of fracture criterion in general yielding fracture mechanics

Efforts made over the last three decades to understand the fracture behaviour of structural materials in elastic and elasto-plastic fracture mechanics are numerous, whereas investigations related to fracture behaviour of materials in thin sheets or general yielding fracture regimes are limited in number. Engineering simulative tests are being used to characterize formability and drawability of sheet metals. However, these tests do not assure consistency in quality of sheet metal products. The prevention of failure in stressed structural components currently requires fracture mechanics based design parameters like critical load, critical crack-tip opening displacement or fracture toughness. The present attempt would aim to fulfill this gap and generate more information thereby increased understanding on fracture behaviour of sheet metals. In the present investigation, using a recently developed technique for determining fracture criteria in sheet metals, results are generated on critical CTOD and fracture toughness. Finite element analysis was performed to support the results on various fracture parameters. The differences are within 1 to 4%. At the end it is concluded that magnitude of critical CTOD and/or critical load can be used as a fracture criterion for thin sheets.     

Fatigue-crack propagation characteristics of aluminum alloys in thick sections

Fatigue-crack propagation data have been obtained for a variety of aluminum alloys, tempers, and products in relatively thick sections of interest for large aircraft shapes. For the higher stress-intensity ranges, the alloys rate in about the same order with regard to resistance to fatigue crack propagation as with regard to plane-strain fractare toughness. However, for low stress intensity ranges (i.e. short cracks or low load ranges) the rate of fatigue-crack propagation was lowest for two alloys, 2020-T651 and 2014-T652. which have low plane-strain fracture toughness. The relative order for different specimen orientations was generally consistent with that based upon plane-strain fracture toughness. High humidity results in higher rates of fatigue-crack propagation, with the effect indicated to be largest for those alloys which are susceptible to stress corrosion cracking.     

Fracture of austenitic steel subject to a wide range of stress triaxiality ratios and crack deformation modes

The stress triaxiality ratio (hydrostatic pressure divided by von Mises equivalent stress) strongly affects the fracture behaviour of materials. Various fracture criteria take this effect into consideration in their effort to predict failure. The dependency of the fracture locus on the stress triaxiality ratio has to be investigated in order to evaluate these criteria and improve the understanding of ductile fracture.This was done by comparing the experimental results of austenitic steel specimens with a strong variation in their stress triaxiality ratios. The specimens had cracks with varying depths and crack tip deformation modes; tension, in-plane shear, and out-of-plane shear. The crack growth in fracture mechanics specimens was compared with the failure of standard testing specimens for tension, upsetting and torsion. By associating the experimental results with finite element simulations it was possible to compare the critical plastic equivalent strain and stress triaxiality ratio values at fracture. In the investigated triaxiality regime an exponential dependency of the fracture locus on the stress triaxiality ratio was found.     

Determination of the fracture properties of metallic materials using pre‐cracked small punch tests

In this paper, the use of pre‐cracked small punch test (p‐SPT) miniature specimens to obtain the fracture parameters of a material is presented. The geometry of the specimens used was square of 10 × 10 mm with a thickness of 0.5 mm. An initial crack‐like notch was created in the SPT specimens by means of a laser micro‐cutting technique. In order to obtain the fracture parameters from p‐SPT specimens three different approaches have been considered here. The first approach is based on the crack tip opening displacement concept, the second is based on the measure of the fracture energy using the area under the load–displacement curve for different crack sizes, and the third approach is based on the direct numerical simulation of the p‐SPT specimen and the numerical calculation of the J‐integral. In order to study the crack initiation in these p‐SPT specimens, several interrupted tests and the subsequent scanning electron microscope analysis have been carried out. The results indicate that p‐SPT specimens can be used as an alternative method for determining the fracture properties of a material in those cases where there is not enough material to undertake conventional fracture tests. For these p‐SPT specimens, the multi‐specimen method for the determination of the fracture energy is the most promising approach. The results indicate that this small specimen size allows the value of the material toughness, under low constraint conditions to be obtained.     

Modal separation of work-of-fracture of carbon/carbon composites

Modal separation of work-of-fracture was carried out for unidirectional C/C composites in order to characterize their multi-modal fracture behavior. The C/C composites were prepared by filament winding method with a coal tar pitch as a matrix precursor, and followed by heat treatment at temperatures between 1000°C and 2800°C under argon flow. During single edge-notched beam tests, tensile fracture and interlaminar shear fracture were simultaneously observed in the specimens. In proportion to the fracture surface area, the total work done during fracture was divided into each fracture mode, and the modal work-of-fracture was obtained by dividing each modal dissipation energy by twice the corresponding modal fracture surface area. With increasing the heat treatment temperature, the modal work-of-fracture for the tensile mode gradually increased and reached a maximum of around 6 kJm^–2 at a heat treatment temperature of 2000°C, whereas the modal work-of-fracture for the interlaminar shear mode remained constant around 20 Jm^–2. Determination of these modal work-of-fracture values revealed quantitatively the contribution of each fracture mode to the total dissipation energy of the composites.     

Experimental validation of FE predicted fracture behaviour in thermally sprayed coatings

The fracture behaviour of a brittle coating on a substrate is not only governed by its intrinsic fracture strength, but also by a range of other parameters. In order to be able to understand (and thus predict) the fracture response, it is very important to accurately determine the key coating properties such as elastic modulus, residual stresses and fracture strength. In the present work, the fracture behaviour of three different high velocity oxy-fuel (HVOF) sprayed WC–17% Co coatings on Ti–6Al–4V substrates was studied using four-point bending with the acoustic emission technique. The key coating properties were determined experimentally and finite element (FE) models incorporating these experimentally measured properties were used to predict the cracking behaviour. It was found that the FE model was able to predict the differences in the fracture responses of the three coating types based upon differences in their mechanical properties, which in turn enabled the properties which dominate the fracture response to be identified. Moreover, the ability to predict the fracture behaviour of the coatings provided validation of the physical basis of the FE model.     

高强螺栓断裂原因分析

对断裂的高强度螺栓断口及其腐蚀产物、螺栓表面存在的微裂纹进行了观察分析；对螺栓材料进行了热处理、氢脆敏感性和力学性能试验。结果表明，引起断裂发生的裂纹源─—微裂纹是Ｃｌ￣－应力腐蚀及氢脆交互作用的结果。断裂螺栓材料变脆是由于时效致使晶界产生铁铬碳化物偏聚引起的。对断口形貌和断裂过程用断裂力学方法提出了解释。     

Fracture resistance of polyblends and polyblend matrix composites: Part I Unreinforced and fibre-reinforced nylon 6,6/ABS polyblends

The deformation behaviour and the fracture resistance of a range of nylon 6,6/ABS alloys of varying composition both with and without the presence of glass fibres were investigated. The deformation behaviour was characterized by careful measurements of the volumetric strain during tensile tests in order to understand the relative roles of cavitation and shear yielding in these materials. The fracture resistance was investigated in detail in the fracture mechanics sense by characterizing the J-integral fracture initiation toughness. In materials exhibiting stable crack growth, a new parameter, namely, the plateau value of the J-integral fracture resistance curve, was measured directly and represented the resistance of the material to stable crack growth. The results showed that the relationship between the deformation behaviour and fracture resistance was related to the extent of damage that developed in the crack-tip zone. Substantial additional toughening was developed during the crack extension stage both in the presence and absence of glass fibres. Glass fibres were found to promote shear yielding and, as a result, enhance both the fracture initiation as well as the fracture propagation resistance of the nylon 6,6/ABS alloys. This revised version was published online in November 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Correlation of microstructure and fracture properties of five centrifugal cast high speed steel rolls

Abstract

The present study is concerned with effects of microstructural factors such as distribution and fraction of coarse carbides located along solidification cell boundaries and characteristics of tempered martensitic matrix on fracture properties of five high speed steel (HSS) rolls manufactured by a centrifugal casting method. In situ microfracture observation, fracture toughness measurement and fractographic observation were conducted on these rolls to clarify fracture mechanisms. The in situ observation results indicated that coarse carbides located along cell boundaries provided easy intercellular fracture sites under a low stress intensity factor level. In the rolls whose intercellular carbide fraction and matrix hardness were high, fracture easily occurred under a low stress intensity factor. On the contrary, in the rolls where a small amount of intercellular carbides was distributed on the relatively ductile matrix of lath tempered martensite, the fracture path was accompanied by a considerable amount of plastic deformation including shear band formation, thereby resulting in high fracture toughness. In order to obtain better microstructure, hardness and fracture toughness of the HSS rolls, the minimisation of intercellular carbides, the refinement of carbides and the improvement of the matrix characteristics by controlling alloying elements and heat treatment conditions were suggested.     

烧结Nd-Fe-B合金断裂机制和增韧方法

Nd-Fe-B合金磁性能的提升扩大了其应用范围,但也存在韧性差、脆性大、抗震和抗冲击能力差的缺点,使其在机械加工过程中易开裂,降低了成品率和加工精度,提高了生产成本,也限制了其在高精度仪器仪表、高速电机等领域的应用。因而如何提高其力学性能逐渐成为研究的重点,由此需要探索清楚其断裂机制,并采用适当而有效的方法进行该合金的增韧。基于此目的,综述了近年来Nd-Fe-B合金断裂机制方面的研究成果,分析了其主要是沿晶断裂,只是缺陷的存在会增加穿晶断裂的几率。同时,指出了元素的添加和改善制备工艺是合金增韧的两条途径,不过目前并没有从根本上改变其力学性能差的缺点,所以需要在未来的研究中进一步深入,寻求更为行之有效的增韧方式。     

Toughness properties of a three-dimensional carbon-epoxy composite

The three-dimensional (3D) orthogonal interlocked fabric contains through-the-thickness rein-forcement in order to enhance the interlaminar fracture toughness of the composite. The interlaminar fracture toughness of a carbon-epoxy orthogonal interlocked fabric composite was experimentally determined by use of the recently developed tabbed double cantilever beam specimen. The data reduction methods applicable to these tests and materials and the interpretation of the results were discussed. The results of critical strain energy release rate,G _Ic, were compared to those of a two-dimensional (2D) laminate having the same in-plane structure. The energy-dissipating crack propagation processes were described. The in-plane fracture toughness of the 3D fabric was experimentally measured and compared to that of the 2D laminate. The through-the-thickness fibres were found to create a ten-fold increase in interlaminar toughness, and a 25% improvement in the in-plane fracture toughness.     

Determination of essential work of fracture in EPBC sheets obtained by different transformation processes

1 mm sheets of polypropylene and ethylene-propylene block copolymers (EPBC) have been obtained using different processing methods in order to study the influence of processing induced morphology in the fracture properties of these materials. The processing methods employed were compression moulding (CM), extrusion-calendering (EC) and injection moulding (IM). Additionally, the sheets obtained by extrusion and injection were submitted to an annealing process with the aim to obtain more homogeneous morphologies that would ease their characterization.The morphology has been characterized by different techniques: Polarizing light microscopy (MLP), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), wide-angle X-ray diffraction scattering (WAXS) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM).The fracture properties were determined by the essential work of fracture (EWF) method for deeply double edge notched specimens (DDENT), since these materials show ductile and post-yielding fracture behaviour. The EWF technique was applied in both the melt flow (MD) and the transversal (TD) directions in the sheets obtained by extrusion and injection moulding.Results show that the sensitivity of the technique allows examining the effect of morphological variations of thin sheets, as well as a better characterization of the orientation level (versus other parameters like yielding stress or elastic modulus obtained by tensile test).     

Effect of local volume fraction of microporosity on tensile properties in Al–Si–Mg cast alloy

Abstract

Porosity in Al–Si–Mg cast alloys utilised in automotive parts affects directly products quality, i.e. mechanical properties. In this study, the effect of micropores on mechanical properties has been investigated by X-ray tomography from the viewpoint of clustering micropores. The local volume fraction (LVF) of porosity was introduced to analyse the effect of clustering micropores. The statistical Weibull method was also used in order to explain strength of the alloy tested. The fracture strain decreased drastically from 17 to 3% on an inverse parabolic relationship with increasing porosity. In the case of the specimens that contain the largest pore higher than 100 m m, the ultimate tensile strength decreases monotonically. It is found that the fracture surface passes through high LVF regions. The fracture strain obviously depends on the ratio of LVF higher than 10%. It is confirmed that the LVF, which represents unevenly distribution of micropores cluster, is one of important dominant factor for managing the mechanical properties in the Al–Si–Mg cast alloy.     

Toughness-dominated Hydraulic Fracture with Leak-off

This paper considers the problem of a hydraulic fracture in which an incompressible Newtonian fluid is injected at a constant rate to drive a fracture in a permeable, infinite, brittle elastic solid. The two cases of a plane strain and a penny-shaped fracture are considered. The fluid pressure is assumed to be uniform and thus the lag between the fracture front and the fluid is taken to be zero. The validity of these assumptions is shown to depend on a parameter, which has the physical interpretation of a dimensionless fluid viscosity. It is shown that when the dimensionless viscosity is negligibly small, the problem depends only on a single parameter, a dimensionless time. Small and large time asymptotic solutions are derived which correspond to regimes dominated by storage of fluid in the fracture and infiltration of fluid into the rock, respectively. Evolution from the small to the large time asymptotic solution is obtained using a fourth order Runge–Kutta method.