Griffith theory explains brittle fracture in materials. Brittle fracture occurs through the rapid propagation of cracks with little deformation. The maximum stress occurs at crack tips. A.A. Griffith first explained that glass brittleness is due to internal cracks that produce high local stresses. Griffith's theory states that the stress required to propagate a crack is inversely proportional to the square root of the crack length, and is determined by balancing the stored elastic strain energy and surface energy as the crack extends.
Griffith theory explains brittle fracture in materials. Brittle fracture occurs through the rapid propagation of cracks with little deformation. The maximum stress occurs at crack tips. A.A. Griffith first explained that glass brittleness is due to internal cracks that produce high local stresses. Griffith's theory states that the stress required to propagate a crack is inversely proportional to the square root of the crack length, and is determined by balancing the stored elastic strain energy and surface energy as the crack extends.
Griffith theory explains brittle fracture in materials. Brittle fracture occurs through the rapid propagation of cracks with little deformation. The maximum stress occurs at crack tips. A.A. Griffith first explained that glass brittleness is due to internal cracks that produce high local stresses. Griffith's theory states that the stress required to propagate a crack is inversely proportional to the square root of the crack length, and is determined by balancing the stored elastic strain energy and surface energy as the crack extends.
Griffith theory explains brittle fracture in materials. Brittle fracture occurs through the rapid propagation of cracks with little deformation. The maximum stress occurs at crack tips. A.A. Griffith first explained that glass brittleness is due to internal cracks that produce high local stresses. Griffith's theory states that the stress required to propagate a crack is inversely proportional to the square root of the crack length, and is determined by balancing the stored elastic strain energy and surface energy as the crack extends.
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Griffith theory
The term brittle fracture may be defined as a fracture which takes
place by the rapid propagation of a crack with negligible deformation.
Brittle failure is due to a critical combination of several factors, including material structure and composition ,temperature ,rate of loading , size and shape , types of stress, defects and dislocation Many materials such as glass and ceramics are considered brittle. However, as temperature is increased, more ductile behavior is observed such as the drawing and blowing of glass. It has been shown that some brittleness is due to the trace of impurities or dislocation .the brittleness of glass was first explained by A.A. GRIFFITH (1920). As being due to internal cracks producing excessively high local stresses at the crack tips.
In order to explain the mechanism of brittle fracture, let us consider the stress distribution near the crack and the condition under which it propagates .
Now consider a crack of elliptical C/S in a rect specimen,
Let
= Tensile stress applied to the specimen. C = Half length of the crack r = Radius of the curvature at its tip.
It has been applied that when a tensile stress is applied to the specimen , the stress is distributed about the crack in such a way that max stress occur at its tip. The expression for the max stress at the tip of the crack is given by the relation
max = 2 we know that a certain amount of energy is always stored in a material before the propagation of crack is known as elastic strain energy .the energy is released when the crack begins to propagate.
UE = -( c 2
2 )/E
E= youngs modulus of elasticity = surface energy per unit area in joules/sq. meter
Then the surface energy due to the presence of crack of length 2c is given by US = 4C ( )
Total energy resulting from the creation of crack
U = UE + US = -( c 2
2 )/E + 4C ( )
du/dc = d/dc (-( c 2
2 )/E + 4C ( ))=0
-(2c 2 ) /E +(4)=0
1/2 = (2E
/C)
The above expression gives us the stress required to propagate a crack in a brittle material as a function of the size of the micro crack. The expression indicates that the fracture stress is inversely proportional to square root of the crack length.
