Video lecture on Engineering Fracture Mechanics, Prof. K.

Ramesh, IIT Madras 1

Module No.#01, Lecture No. # 06: Fatigue Crack Growth Model

(Refer Slide Time: 00:29)

In the last class, we have looked at

typical photoelastic fringes when
the crack is subjected to mode 1
mode 2 or combination of mode 1
and mode 2. We will see them
again and I have asked you to
make a neat sketch of these
fringes.

(Refer Slide Time: 00:57)

Particularly I want you to pay

attention on the geometric features
of these fringes, in your notes. If
you have not completed some
portion you could see this and edit
those pictures suitably. And these
are all the fringes that you see for
mode 1 loading, these are the
fringes you come across for mode
2. So if you have an exposure to
this it is easy for you to identify by
looking at these fringes, whether
mode one loading exists or mode
two loading exists.

(Refer Slide Time: 02:03)

And I have already mentioned that

these are contours of sigma 1
minus sigma 2. So when you
develop stress field equations it is
possible to verify the accuracy of
those equations by comparing it
with experimental result; in fact, we
would do that. In the development
of fracture mechanics this is very,
very essential and people have
improved their analytical solution by
comparing it with photoelastic
fringes. And photoelasticity can
give you mode 1, mode 2 or
combination of mode 1 and mode
2.
Video lecture on Engineering Fracture Mechanics, Prof. K. Ramesh, IIT Madras 2

(Refer Slide Time: 02:36)

You know it cannot give you mode

3 fringes because that is out of
plane. And in the case of mixed
mode, which is the combination of
mode 1 and mode 2; first
observation is fringes are not
symmetrical about the crack axis
and they are also tilted to different
angles in the top as well as the
bottom. Then we graduated and
looked at the kind of fringe field in
a simulated pressure vessel. You
have actually a annular ring
subjected to internal pressure.

Geometric features of photoelastic fringes observed near the crack-tip

And I drew your attention that, the first fringe what you see here is backward tilted, second is
also slightly backward tilted and the third fringe is forward tilted and fourth fringe is almost
straight and near the tip of the crack you really do not have data and this observation is quite
important for an experimentalist.

See, we have been looking at when you have a crack in the immediate vicinity of the crack
the stresses would be very, very high and you will have plastic deformation. You really do
not have mathematical equations to fully capture, what happens exactly at the crack-tip.
From an experimental point of view, you will not be able to go close and collect data; you
have to collect data only from a region away from near vicinity of the crack-tip. And in this
you findseveral geometric features, which really give a clue for you to incorporate, how
many terms in your analytical expression that need to be used to extract and process data
from experiment to calculate the stress intensity factor.

Multiple radial cracks in annular plates

(Refer Slide Time: 05:10)

Video lecture on Engineering Fracture Mechanics, Prof. K. Ramesh, IIT Madras 3

(Refer Slide Time: 05:51)

Because, when you are really

looking at practical problems they
are all finite geometry. Analytical
solution, provide only for infinite
geometry or you have series of
repeated cracks. Such nice
problems only you have
expressions for stress intensity
factor. For any other problem
when you have a crack lying in a
stress concentration zone or in a
finite geometry you have to
depend on either a numerical
technique or an experimental
technique. In the case of an
experimental technique you will have to use appropriate equations to process the data. That
becomes very important. And we have also looked at in the last class a series of cracks,
radial cracks emanating from the inner boundary. And from your understanding of solid
mechanics, because it is subjected to hoop stress its essentially in mode 1 loading. And you
observed that, there is no major interaction of these cracks. When you have multiple cracks.
if they are far apart they are not really interacting. And you also saw that fringes depict a
typical mode 1 loading situation. And you know, in pressure vessel technology, they want to
increase the pressure carrying capacity of the vessel.

(Refer Slide Time: 07:09)

And you all know that inner

boundary is very heavily stressed.
So, there is a possibility of cracks
emanating from the inner
boundary. Suppose I want this to
withstand a higher pressure there
have been techniques, such as
autofrettage have been
developed, which induce residual
compressive stress at the internal
boundary. So if I have a residual
compressive stress at the internal
boundary, the possibility of cracks
to grow from the inner boundary
will be diminished. But, what does this autofrettage do? It will generate residual tensile
stresses on the outer boundary. So when you pressurize the vessel, this in combination with
the residual tensile stress on the outer boundary, can lead to cracks emanating from the
outer boundary. And you have an example, where several cracks are put on the outer
boundary. And you have cracks of different lengths and also they do not follow a periodicity.
This is randomly done to observe; is there any major interaction between the cracks? And
from your understanding of solid mechanics, you can easily say that, these cracks also
experience mode 1 type of loading. But do you see anything different in the fringe patterns?
Video lecture on Engineering Fracture Mechanics, Prof. K. Ramesh, IIT Madras 4

(Refer Slide Time: 08:05)

In all the fringe patterns where

fringes are well developed, you find
a frontal loop. I will magnify it and
show. So what you find here is
these are the features that we saw
in a short crack. You have fringes
forward tilted they are symmetrical
about the crack axis. But this crack
exists in a pressure vessel and
stresses are very high in this region.
So the crack-tip is in a stress
concentration zone and the crack is
also very long. And what you find,
you have a prominent frontal loop.
You have many such loops available in addition to the forward tilted loops.

(Refer Slide Time: 09:16)

(Refer Slide Time: 09:45)

In fact, if I go and use an analytical

expression to process
experimental data, the analytical
expression should have sufficient
number of terms to represent this
phenomenon. It should be able to
capture this aspect from the
experiment. Only then I can use it
for data reduction based on
experimental information. This is
very, very important. And this is
what is summarized here, that the
autofrettage techniques can also
induce residual tensile stress at
the outer surface which combined
with the stress due to internal
pressure may cause the formation
of cracks at the outer surface. This
is what we have just now
discussed. And the problem of an
annular plate with the radial
cracks, you come across in many
engineering applications. Radial
cracks have been found to occur
in mechanical components such
as bladed disk assemblies, fly
wheels, railway wheels, clutch plates, etc. So, there are many practical problems which
come under this category. Because they are all finite body problem experimental results are
very valuable.
Video lecture on Engineering Fracture Mechanics, Prof. K. Ramesh, IIT Madras 5

(Refer Slide Time: 10:52)

In those cases, how the cracks are

formed? The centrifugal loading as
well as thermal loading contribute
to the formation of cracks. So it is
practically a very important
problem. Annular plate with radial
cracks, emanating from inner
boundary or outer boundary, If you
understand you could address
quite a variety of practical
problems in a meaningful way. And
for further information you could
look at some of these references.
And this was published in way
back in 1997. This really brought out the higher order terms in fracture mechanics stress
field equations, which need to be utilized for processing photoelastic data.

(Refer Slide Time: 11:24)

Then you have another paper,

which deals with periodic radial
cracks. And there are also
numerical studies done for the
evaluation of stress intensity factor
in thick annular plates using cyclic
symmetry.

Books and references

(Refer Slide Time: 11:42)

You know we have come more or less to the end

of this overview on fracture mechanics. And for
you to have a collection of books and references
these are summarized here. And the book by
Professor Prashanth Kumar Elements of Fracture
Mechanics. This was earlier published by
Wheeler publishing. Now, it is available through
Tata McGraw Hill. It is quite a good book for you
to possess. It has a balance of conceptual
development and mathematics. It is affordable
and I would recommend you to have this as a text
book for your convenience.
Video lecture on Engineering Fracture Mechanics, Prof. K. Ramesh, IIT Madras 6

And there are many other books. The book by Professor Simha from IISc Bangalore. This
focuses more on conceptual development and the mathematical rigor is consciously avoided
to drive home the basic tenets of fracture mechanics. And you have the very famous book
by Broek on Elementary Engineering Fracture Mechanics. This was originally published by
Kluwer academic publishers. Now, it is taken over by Springer Science and Business Media.
And there is also another important book by Broek, The Practical Use Of Fracture
Mechanics. So in all these references you please write the name of the author, the
publisher and year of publication.

That would quicken up your writing of these references. The title you can always find out
from the internet. Then the other the book is by Gdoutos, Fracture Mechanics An
Introduction and each one of these provide you different flavor of fracture mechanics. You
know what I have attempted to give is a conglomeration of all these books.

Whatever the ideas that they have focused they are presented in a convenient fashion for
you to appreciate both concepts as well as mathematical development. You may be thinking
in the overview that, we have been listening more of concepts. But we would soon get into
mathematics where you would find the mathematics is quite complex.

(Refer Slide Time: 14:24)

So, we will do that. And you know,

you also have several other books,
these are also listed. There is a
book by Hellan, this is on
Introduction To Fracture
Mechanics. This is highly
mathematical and there is a book
by Knott, there is a book by
Meguid. It is mostly on practical
applications. And you have a very
important Handbook on Stress
Intensity Factors. See while
discussing fracture mechanics we
have already seen, you need to
find out stress intensity factors for a given geometry. In olden days for stress concentration
factors, you had a very famous book by Savin. That provided stress concentration data for a
variety of problems. On similar lines, Murakami has come out with Stress Intensity Factor
Handbook. It is available in volumes 1 and 2. It is available in our library; whenever you
have a problem for which you need to know the stress intensity factor you can have a look at
it. If you have it then proceed with it. If you do not have it then go for a numerical or
experimental approach.

And finally you have book by Anderson. This is more like an encyclopedia. It covers very
many topics in fracture mechanics and this is again available in the library. It could be used
more as a reference, what in my opinion. It would be a better book as a reference rather
than a text book.

Crack growth and fracture mechanisms

Video lecture on Engineering Fracture Mechanics, Prof. K. Ramesh, IIT Madras 7

(Refer Slide Time: 16:12)

And now, we move on to the next

chapter on crack growth and
fracture mechanisms. You know you
have understood reasonably well
after a very long overview on
fracture mechanics a crack by itself
is only a partial failure. Due to
service and environmental
conditions a crack can grow and
become critical. A critical crack can
lead to fracture resulting in material
separation.

So that you know. This is what we

have developed very carefully in overview of fracture mechanics. So you have that
knowledge to start with. And we will
make a subtle distinction between
crack growth and fracture. Crack
growth is a slow process whereas
fracture is an ultra-fast process. It
happens very, very fast.

(Refer Slide Time: 17:30)

And we would have a closer look at

this animation. And this shows,
there is a crack growth phase
followed by fracture. And you watch
it carefully. You have this dye
penetration technique is used, you
see the crack growth surface which
is pinkish in color. After the crack
has grown you have this material
has fractured. And if you watch it
carefully, you would see this is at
forty five degrees. This is called a
shear lip. We would see that in detail
for us, to appreciate certain
mechanisms dealing with crack
growth.

(Refer Slide Time: 18:26)

And before I proceed further, I

would also like to point out that there is stable fracture possible. We have said crack growth
is a slow process whereas fracture is an ultra-fast process. But you also have another
phenomenon that is observed in the case of plates in plane stress there is stable fracture.
However, stable fracture is followed immediately by unstable fracture. You know I am trying
to develop a good conceptual foundation for you to appreciate the mathematical
development. Because you need to know there is crack, there is crack growth and fracture.
Video lecture on Engineering Fracture Mechanics, Prof. K. Ramesh, IIT Madras 8

And fracture also people have observed stable fracture. And when you have actually looked
at a broken specimen, you find there is a shear lip and it is worthwhile to spend some time
on understanding the shear lip, this is seen in a conventional tension test itself.

Shear-lip in necking

(Refer Slide Time: 19:40)

You will have a look at it. Let us go

back to the conventional tension
test, you have a specimen that is
pulled. And after it has reached the
ultimate tensile strength followed
by fracture, you find there is
necking and the material has
separated. And what causes
necking; how necking can be
modeled? There is a, there is a
very simple model, that I am going
to show.

(Refer Slide Time: 20:10)

And in the case of necking it is

actually the internal flaw, which
dictates along the length of the
specimen, where the necking
would start. And what happens is,
you have a internal flaw which
precipitates necking. And this flaw
grows in size. That is what you see
here. That is shown in red. And
after sometime you find suddenly
on the ends you have a shear
failure at 45 degrees. So, the
material separation starts from the
center of the specimen and
proceeds outward. And you have a
shear lip on either side.

We would see the animation full. So this gives a possible explanation on how necking could
be viewed at. And what this slide shows is: In a simulation, it is shown that necking has
taken place at the center of the specimen. This need not be. And I am going to show you
examples from an actual material failure done in a tension test. You have one example, you
have another example. This is of aluminum specimen. There is a third example; this is on
steel. These are done at various points in time. And what these specimens show is necking
location can be different. So you find it is exactly at the center in the case of a simulated test
specimen. On the other hand it is more or less at the center in this specimen. It is slightly off,
whereas this is very close to the grips. Since we have seen what really causes necking, you
are in a position to appreciate, because you have internal flaws that dictate where necking
would precipitate.
Video lecture on Engineering Fracture Mechanics, Prof. K. Ramesh, IIT Madras 9

(Refer Slide Time: 22:54)

So, you can understand it can

happen along the length of the
specimen. My focus is to
appreciate the shear lip in the case
of a necking also. We would have
a look at it. And what you have
actually is there is a cup and cone
fracture. You could see a more or
less a flat portion here and it is at
45 degrees. And this is all around.
This is a circular specimen, so this
forms like a cup and you have a
cone. In fact, we would revert back
to the shear lip again and again for
several conceptual development,
when we want to understand
different models for either crack
growth or fracture. This is one
view of it. I would like you to make
some sketch as much as possible.
You may not be able to replicate
all these finer details. At least the
appearance of a cone like what
you see here and a cup. And you
can see localized plastic
deformation.

(Refer Slide Time: 24:06)

(Refer Slide Time: 24:14)

I have different views of the same

specimen. You also have a top
view. So this shows that you have
a cup and you have a cone and
there is also a nice side view. So
you have the necking region is
very clearly seen and this is a cup
and cone failure. In fact, this is
taken out from the experiments done by various students in the laboratory. Whatever the
specimens that were available, we put them together and you get a feel that, there is a cup
and cone failure is observable in the case of a tension test. And you essentially have a
shear lip. And we would use that for developing a model for fatigue as well as for ductile
fracture.
Video lecture on Engineering Fracture Mechanics, Prof. K. Ramesh, IIT Madras 10

And we will look at crack growth mechanisms. You will be very familiar with fatigue and
fatigue occurs, because of cyclical loading. Whenever people think of crack growth they
immediately jump all cracks grow by fatigue. So what you will have to keep in mind is fatigue
is one of the mechanisms for crack growth and its widely prevalent. There is no harm that
when you have a crack growth to feel, that it could have been a fatigue crack. That is quite
all right but, thats not the only mechanism; that is what you have to keep in mind. Crack can
also grow by stress corrosion cracking, which is abbreviated as SCC. What happens in this,
you do not have an alternating stress but, you have a sustained static stress. But, the
specimen as a whole is under aggressive environment.

(Refer Slide Time: 24:58)

So, its a combination of aggressive

environment and sustained static
stress, lead to stress corrosion
cracking. Then you can have
another phenomenon possible, that
is creep. In this you have sustained
static stress under high
temperature. In practice, what you
will find is you will have a
combination of this. Individually,
when you study you can look at
what happens in fatigue, what
happens in SCC, what happens in
creep but, in practice you could have a combination of these.

So, you can have, what is known as corrosion fatigue, creep fatigue; it is a combination of
corrosion and fatigue you call it as corrosion fatigue, combination of creep and fatigue you
call it as creep fatigue. And you could also have liquid metal embrittlement.

So, there could be many crack growth mechanisms. And we need to understand, I have
already mentioned that you need to know the degradation mechanisms of structures. And
that is very important for you to develop concepts related to damage tolerant design. Unless
you understand the degradation mechanisms, you will not be in a position to develop the
appropriate methodologies. We have looked at crack growth mechanisms. We will also look
at what are the fracture mechanisms. You could have brittle fracture or cleavage fracture.
We would see each of them in detail. You have ductile fracture, which is also called as
rupture. We would see each of this in detail. And brittle fracture is very, very fast. Ductile
fracture is also equally fast from conventional point of view but, compared to brittle fracture it
is slow.
Video lecture on Engineering Fracture Mechanics, Prof. K. Ramesh, IIT Madras 11

Fatigue crack growth model

(Refer Slide Time: 29:04)

When you look at crack growth,

fracture is a very fast process
whether it is brittle or ductile. It is
only attention to detail that is all.
They are both fast processes. In
relation to brittle fracture; ductile
fracture is slightly slow. And what
we will look at is, first we will try to
understand how a crack grows due
to fatigue. We will develop a model
for this. After having looked at the
solution by Inglis, you would agree
that, there would be excessive
plastic deformation present at the
crack-tip, because of high stress
concentration even at very low
loads.

You know I am going to show a

sequence of steps for modeling the
fatigue crack growth. After you
observe these steps, we will go to
this animation and clarify ourself the
understanding what causes a crack
to grow. So, first pay attention on the
concepts presented in this portion of
the slide and I would like you to
make a sketch of this. And in order
to explain only, I focused on the
shear lip in the case of tension test,
you have a cup and cone. And what
is important here is you have a shear
lip at 45 degrees.

So now I have a crack. Because load

is applied, you will have plastic
deformation in the vicinity of the
crack-tip, which will cause slip of
atomic planes due to shear stress.
So what will happen is, this will slip
and you will have extension of crack.
And such a phenomenon can
happen in complimentary planes.
See, my focus is to show
conceptually, there is a possibility of
growth of a crack due to fatigue in
contrast to a crack zipping through the metal. When it moves very fast it is fracture.
Video lecture on Engineering Fracture Mechanics, Prof. K. Ramesh, IIT Madras 12

(Refer Slide Time: 31:47)

Now, what we will look at is, we look at a reasonably a good model which explains how a
crack grows, because of repeated loading. So, the first thing what happens is you have to
recognize, there is plastic deformation at the crack-tip and because of this slip of atomic
planes occur. So it could happen in complementary planes and that is what is shown in the
next sketch. So what you have here is, because of successive slip you find the crack has
taken a shape like this. Make a neat sketch of this. This will give you a conceptual
appreciation, how a crack grows in the case of fatigue, in contrast to what you come across
in fracture.

(Refer Slide Time: 33:02)

And simultaneously, people who have drawn this they could also have a look at this
animation. Seeing this 2, 3 times will make your concepts clear. So what you find is the
crack which was originally like this, it has taken a shape when you recognize that, there
could be slip on complementary planes. Nevertheless, you should recognize you have
plastic deformation, so nothing can remain sharp. The plastic deformation will deform it. So
you can reasonably anticipate the crack would blunt by itself. So what you find is, you had a
sharp crack from the knowledge of Inglis solution, you can anticipate the stresses would be
very high, even for very small external loads.

(Refer Slide Time: 33:47)

So, there would be plastic

deformation. This plastic
deformation cause a slip and you
find slip in complimentary planes.
Then eventually you find a crack
has grown by some distance and it
is blunt because of plastic
deformation. So all this happens
during loading. And when the load
is removed, when you go through
the cycle the crack-tip becomes
sharp. Because when you have a
cyclical loading it moves up and
down.

(Refer Slide Time: 34:52)

So, when the loading is removed

the crack becomes sharp. Then
the whole process will be repeated
for subsequent load cycles. You
know what I am going to show
here is, first see this animation like
this, then I will magnify. Because
you could see loading clearly, so
during the loading phase, the
crack advances at the end of the
Video lecture on Engineering Fracture Mechanics, Prof. K. Ramesh, IIT Madras 13

loading phase, it becomes blunt. Then it becomes sharp when it is unloaded. So you could
see the loading, unloading on this scale of the animation. Suppose, I magnify you will see
what happens at the crack-tip. You have to recognize that, this is highly a magnified picture.
It is in the level of microns. We have magnified it several times just to illustrate what is
reasonably a good model to appreciate growth of a crack in fatigue. You could see here
during the loading phase the crack advances by slip and slip in complementary planes.

So, it becomes sharp, then it becomes blunt. And when you have unloading the crack has
become sharp. Then the whole process starts. The whole process starts all over again. And
what is also attempted to show here is, the delta a, what you come across after each cycle
would be slightly different. After several cycles because the crack is growing larger, stresses
also will be very high. So the increment also will become larger and larger as the crack
grows. This is easy for you to extrapolate.

In fact, in one of the assignment sheets you will go and find out crack growth rate by
processing the micrographs. Now, what I am going to draw your attention is the model says,
there is crack-tip blunting and then it becomes sharp when it is unloaded. The crack has
grown by loading it has become blunt and when I do the unloading it becomes sharp.
Common sense tells this should leave some residue on the actual material, because you
say that it is opening closing, opening closing, opening closing it becomes blunt and sharp
something should happen. In fact, it is so. People have done postmortem and understood
whatever the model that you have, indeed such model is explainable by looking at what are
known as striations. We look at that.

Striations

(Refer Slide Time: 37:06)

So, what are striations? Striations

are very tiny closely spaced ridges
that identify the tip of the crack at
some point in time. And you have
a typical striations observed in a
specimen. The courtesy is given at
the bottom. And you should also
see the scale. It is two microns.
This short distance is two microns.
So within two microns you have 1,
2, 3, 4 striations are seen. And I
will also magnify this picture for
clarity and try to make a sketch of
it. And why these ridges are
formed? These ridges are formed because of repeated opening and closing. That is what we
had seen when we had developed the fatigue model. We have a repeated opening and
closing. You cant see them in naked eye. You will have to see them only at very high
magnifications. So the specimen carries this signature.

(Refer Slide Time: 38:03)

Video lecture on Engineering Fracture Mechanics, Prof. K. Ramesh, IIT Madras 14

And in fact you could find out, what

is the kind of loading - there may
be a over load here; repeated over
load. So you find that, there is a
shift here. There is a very long
crack growth. All that kind of
analysis metallurgists do.

Now, we have seen that, there are

striations formed. Now you have
an explanation from the fatigue
crack growth model why striations
are formed. They are explainable.

In all crack surfaces you come

across striations. This is one of the important signature at the microscopic level. But, it
depends on the material; also it depends on the composition of the material. You cannot go
and argue if striations are not seen crack growth has not taken place. By and large, in most
of the situations you come across striations. There are certain exceptions depending on the
composition of the material. Clear striations may not have been formed. So this is also you
have to keep in mind.

Beachmarks

(Refer Slide Time: 39:52)

Now, we move on to, what are

known as Beachmarks? See in
contrast to striations, Beachmarks
are macroscopically visible. So you
should not confuse between a
Beachmark and a striation. These
Beachmarks are formed when the
fatigue crack growth is interrupted.
That means, you run the machine
for several hours and stop it for
one or two days then restart. And
then run it for several days then
stop. So all this the specimen
carries a signature. So you can do
postmortem. See in the case of
trees if they want to find out what is
the age of the tree, they would see embedded circles. So, you can go and do the dating of
the tree.

Some kind of a natural phenomenon happens even when a structure is subjected to external
loads. We think that it is inert. It is not inert. It also has some kind of an intelligence. It is
expressing itself, that this is the way I have been loaded. I carry all this information. So, this
is what metallurgists do in their postmortem analysis. A normal mechanical engineer, may
not even heard the term what is striations. But, once you come to take a course in fracture
mechanics, you need to have certain rudiments from material science, which would help you
Video lecture on Engineering Fracture Mechanics, Prof. K. Ramesh, IIT Madras 15

to appreciate fracture mechanics better. So, that is the reason why I thought, I would spend
some time on explaining what are striations.

And now we are looking at Beachmarks. I also have a nice picture. Here again you see a
failure by a shear lip. This is always shown at 45 degrees. I would like you to make a sketch
of it.

(Refer Slide Time: 43:04)

So, in this you have origin of a

fatigue crack, there is a fatigue
zone and there is a rupture zone.
And in the fatigue zone what you
find, I find several concave marks
these are known as clam shells.
They really stop marks. They are
also having the name Beachmarks.
The Beachmarks will not be
present if the part is operated
continuously or with only brief
interruptions in service.

So, you will have to know only

when there is stoppage and re-
operating of the machine you find distinctive Beachmarks. And what are striations? In
between these Beachmarks, you may have several thousands of them. They would be
visible only under a microscope. Only under a very high magnification they are visible.

So, you have to make a distinction between what are striations and what are Beachmarks
and this is what is again emphasized. Beachmarks must not be confused with striations.
Although they are present frequently on the same crack surface, there may be many
thousands of microscopic striations between each pair of macroscopic Beachmarks. And
make a neat sketch of this and make a distinction between striations and Beachmarks.So,
you will have many thousands of striations between the Beachmarks. So, this explains what is
the mechanism of crack growth by
fatigue.

(Refer Slide Time: 44:04)

Now, we move on to Stress

Corrosion Cracking abbreviated
as SCC. And we have already
noted SCC is induced from the
combined influence of tensile
stress and corrosive
environment. Where do the
tensile stress come about? See
in many mechanical assemblies
you have interference fits. These
interference fits also can cause
Video lecture on Engineering Fracture Mechanics, Prof. K. Ramesh, IIT Madras 16

local tensile stress zones or if you have a oversized pin and that is what is summarized
here.

The required tensile stresses may be in the form of directly applied stresses or in the form of
residual stresses like oversized pins used in assembly. And this is usually ignored. See if
you go to a company if they make a part by interference they dont even recognize, that
interference fit would induce quite a lot of stresses in the vicinity.

They ignore that. When they do the analysis they only take the external loads and they find
eventually whatever the component that they have made, they fail in service. Then they
come back to us and we have to tell them you have overlooked the residual stresses
created by interference.

So, interference fits are very, very important and you have to analyze and handle them
carefully. You should not overlook the role of residual stresses induced because of
interference fit. And if you look at SCC, there is also a material angle to it. What is the exact
alloy composition, so that also gives you some kind of a way to come out of SCC.

If I have a SCC problem can I go and play with the alloy composition or can I go and play
with the microstructure and also the heat-treatment? By such methodologies, you may be
able to find out a way out from minimizing the crack growth due to SCC. In fact one of the
examples which we would see later, would bring out what kind of steels that you should
choose for a given application.

(Refer Slide Time: 46:54)

So, definitely the microstructure,

heat-treatment or alloy compositions
do play a role. This is again a crack
growth and crack growth is a slow
process. And here you have a very
nice magnified picture of an
application. It shows intergranular
SCC of an Inconel heat exchanger
tube with the crack following the
grain boundaries.

(Refer Slide Time: 47:36)

Video lecture on Engineering Fracture Mechanics, Prof. K. Ramesh, IIT Madras 17

(Refer Slide Time: 48:12)

The courtesy is also given. It is

from Metallurgical Technologies
incorporated. And I would magnify
this picture, you would see
different grains on this. This also
make a simplified sketch of it.
What you see as thick black is
actually the crack. And where the
crack has grown? It has
essentially grown on the boundary
of the grains. So it is intergranular
crack growth. And how does the
crack-tip extends? Because of the
corrosive action, the crack-tip
extends. We saw a different
mechanism in fatigue.

There are three mechanisms identified to cause SCC: one is active path dissolution, second
one is hydrogen embrittlement, the third one is film induced cleavage.

In fact we would look at these mechanisms in the next class and what we saw today was the
geometric features of the photoelastic fringe, gives you an indication of what kind of loading
that exists and I also pointed out, if I have to find out stress intensity factor by processing
experimental data, I need to take an appropriate analytical equation with as many terms as
possible. So, that analytical modeling of the region from where I take the experimental data
is valid.

Then we looked at some of the books and references and then we moved on to
understanding a shear lip; what is seen in a simple tension test as cup and cone fracture.
We utilize that understanding for appreciating the growth of a crack by fatigue. Then we
moved on to another crack growth mechanism named as stress corrosion cracking. Thank
you.