6. Failure in Materials

Department of MME
BUET, Dhaka
 How do things break?
 Fracture fundamentals
 Ductile vs. brittle fracture
 Characteristics of ductile failure
 Characteristics of brittle failure
 Impact fracture testing
 Ductile-to-brittle transition
Reference:
1. W. D. Callister, Jr. “Materials Science and Engineering An Introduction,”
5th Edition, John Wiley & Sons, 2001, Ch. 7, pp.184-209.
 Failure of engineering materials is almost always
an undesirable event
 human lives are in jeopardy
 economic losses
 interference with the availability of products and services
 Usual causes of failure
 improper materials selection and processing
 inadequate design of the component
 misuse
 It is the responsibility of the engineer

 to anticipate and plan for possible future failure
 if failure does occur, to assess its cause and then take
appropriate preventive measures against future incidents
 By plastic deformation – yielding
e.g., by bending a paper clip
 By (instantaneous) impact fracture
e.g., by breaking a pencil or a tooth by impact fracture
 By fatigue (delayed fracture)
e.g., by bending that paper clip back and forth several times
 By creep (temperature-assisted delayed fracture)
e.g., by sagging of gold archway in ancient churches
 By wear (surface damage)
e.g., by simply wearing something out
Failure by Plastic Deformation
 Plastic (permanent)
deformation of a bridge
 Deformation led to eventual
collapse
 Suspension bridge failed after
only having been open for
traffic a few months (1940)
Instantaneous Impact Fracture
500 T2 tankers and 2700 Liberty
ships were built during WW2
 prefabricated all-welded construction
with brittle steel
 one vessel was built in 5 days !!
SS John P. Gaines split in two (1943)
 initially, some 30% of Liberty ships suffered

catastrophic failure
 cracks started at stress concentrations
(e.g., hatchways) and propagated rapidly
through the steel hull as the metal became
too brittle at low temperature
Brittle fracture of SS Schenectady (1943)
Instantaneous Impact Fracture
 Air France charter flight from Paris

to New York (25 July 2000).
 The Concorde crushed into a hotel
shortly after take-off, 5 miles from
airport, with 109 fatalities.
 Attributed to a piece of metal on
the runway causing the bursting of
a tire.
 The impact of the tire debris on the
fuel tank punctured it, leading to
loss of engine power, and the
subsequent crack.
 This is an example of foreign-
object damage (FOD).
Fatigue and Delayed Fracture
De Havilland Comet, first
commercial jet aircraft, had five
major crashes in 1952-54 period
Caused by fatigue cracks
initiated at square windows,
driven by cabin pressurisation
and depressurisation
Aloha Airline Boeing 737, in route from

Hilo to Honolulu (April 1998) undergoes
explosive decompression – 1 fatality
Caused by a weakening of the fuselage
due to corrosion and small cracks
Failure due to Wear
 A major wear problem is with railroad tracks, where surface wear from metal-to-metal
rolling contact can damage the rails leading to derailment
Derailment of 100 T tank wagon and Rail collapse lead to derailment

the rest of the train in UK (1982) of a locomotive in UK (1981)
 Fracture is the separation of a body into two or more
pieces in response to an applied static stress at a
temperatures that is low relative to its melting point.
 Depending on the ability of material to undergo plastic

deformation before fracture, two fracture modes can be
defined - ductile or brittle.
 Any fracture process involves two steps:

 Crack formation or initiation
 Crack propagation
The mode of fracture is highly dependent on the
mechanism of crack propagation.
Ductile fracture A. Very ductile fracture
very extensive plastic deformation soft metals (e.g. Pb, Au) at room temperature;
ahead of crack tip other metals, polymers, glasses at high temperature.
Brittle fracture B. Moderately ductile fracture
very little or no plastic deformation typical for ductile metals
ahead of crack tip C. Brittle fracture
cold metals, ceramics.
Ductile Failure Brittle Failure
Extensive plastic deformation ahead of Very little plastic deformation at the
advancing crack crack front
High energy absorption before failure Little energy absorption before failure
(high toughness) (low toughness)
Process proceeds relatively slowly as Crack advances extremely rapidly

the crack length extended
Such crack is stable (i.e., it resists any Such crack is unstable and crack
further deformation unless an propagation, once started, continues
increased stress is applied) spontaneously
Dislocation mediated
crack grows
perpendicularly
to applied stress
Steps in ductile fracture

(a) Necking
(b) Cavity formation
45° maximum
shear stress (c) Cavity coalescence to form
elliptical crack
(d) Crack propagation at 45 deg.
(e) Fracture
Dislocation mediated
Tensile loading Shear loading
Typical Cup-and-Cone fracture

in ductile aluminium Fractographic studies at high resolution using SEM
Dimples (spherical shaped in tensile, parabolic in shear)
correspond to micro-cavities that initiate crack formation
Limited dislocation mobility
Brittle fracture in a mild steel Scanning electron

fractograph of brittle failure
 No appreciable plastic deformation
 Crack propagation is very fast
 Crack propagates nearly perpendicular to the direction of applied stress
 Crack often propagates by cleavage – breaking of atomic bonds along
specific crystallographic planes (cleavage planes)
Limited dislocation mobility
intergranular fracture transgranular fracture
fracture crack propagated fracture cracks pass

along grain boundaries through grains
Testing of fracture characteristics under high strain rate
Two standard tests, the

Charpy and Izod, measure
the impact energy (that
required to fracture a test
piece under an impact
load), which is also called
the notch toughness.
Temperature dependency of absorbed impact energy of material
ductile failure
Stress
brittle failure
Temperature / Strain rate
impact energy drops

suddenly over a narrow
temperatures range
(DBTT)
BCC and HCP metals FCC metals

 Show DBTT  Remains ductile even at
 Depends on composition and microstructure extremely low temperatures
(grain size   DBTT)  DBTT  -100 to +100 °C
Case Study
Pre WW2: The Titanic WW2: Liberty Ship
Problem:
Used steel with a DBTT about equal to atmospheric temperature !!
Safe design strategy: Stay above the DBTT !!

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Department of MME

 It is the responsibility of the engineer

SS John P. Gaines split in two (1943)

 initially, some 30% of Liberty ships suffered

 Air France charter flight from Paris

Aloha Airline Boeing 737, in route from

Derailment of 100 T tank wagon and Rail collapse lead to derailment

 Depending on the ability of material to undergo plastic

 Any fracture process involves two steps:

Process proceeds relatively slowly as Crack advances extremely rapidly

Steps in ductile fracture

Tensile loading Shear loading

Typical Cup-and-Cone fracture

Brittle fracture in a mild steel Scanning electron

intergranular fracture transgranular fracture

fracture crack propagated fracture cracks pass

Two standard tests, the

impact energy drops

BCC and HCP metals FCC metals

Pre WW2: The Titanic WW2: Liberty Ship

Safe design strategy: Stay above the DBTT !!

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