Fatigue, Creep and Fracture

ME 4031
-Introduction-
Lecture# 3

Dr. Md. Abdullah Al Bari

md.abdullahbari@gmail.com
Department of Mechanical Engineering
Khulna University of Engineering & Technology

08:50 - 09:40 Monday, ME#310

1
Department of Mechanical Engineering, KUET
 Syllabus of Nuclear Systems and Controls

• Fatigue
• Fatigue failures and types of loading
• Fatigue properties
• Factors influencing fatigue strength
• Utilization of fatigue properties in design
• Creep
• Creep-stress-time-temp. relations
• Recovery creep and relaxation
• Creep in tension, bending, torsion and bucking
• Fracture
• Basic modes of fracture
• Theories of fracture nechanics
• Grifith theory, Irwins theory
• Various tests to measure fracture properties

Department of Mechanical Engineering, KUET

 Lecture Outline

• Different types of failure modes

• Ductile Failure and its characteristics
• Brittle Failure and its characteristics

Department of Mechanical Engineering, KUET

 Failure Modes
What is Failure mode?

A failure mode is a cause of failure or one possible way a

system or structure can fail.

When a system has many potential ways of failing, it has multiple

failure modes or competing risks. The more complex a system is, the
more failure modes there are. For example, a home fire alarm can fail
because of a dead or missing battery, faulty wiring, defective detector,
or defective alarm.

Department of Mechanical Engineering, KUET

 Failure Modes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTFfrTNgvaQ
Department of Mechanical Engineering, KUET
 Failure Modes

Department of Mechanical Engineering, KUET

 Failure modes
Some common failure modes of pressure
equipment-
•Ductile fracture
•Brittle fracture
•Excessive deformation/collapse
•Instability  buckling
•Progressive deformation  ratcheting
•Fatigue
•Creep
•Creep ratcheting
•Creep-fatigue interaction
•Stress corrosion cracking

Department of Mechanical Engineering, KUET

 Ductile Fracture (Ductile Rupture)

• Most often ductile fracture in tension occurs after

appreciable plastic deformation. It occurs by a slow
tearing of the metal with the expenditure of
considerable energy. It can be said that ductile fracture
in tension is usually preceded by a localized reduction in
cross-sectional area, called necking. Further it exhibits
three stages: -

Department of Mechanical Engineering, KUET

 Ductile Fracture (Ductile Rupture)
Stages-
1) After onset of necking, cavities form, usually at inclusions at
second-phase particles, in the necked region because the
geometrical changes induce hydrostatic tensile stresses.

2) The cavities grow, and further growth leads to their coalesce

resulting in formation of crack that grows outward in
direction perpendicular to the application of stress.

3) Final failure involves rapid crack propagation at about 45º to

the tensile axis. This angle represents the direction of
maximum shear stress that causes shear slip in the final stage.
Department of Mechanical Engineering, KUET
 Ductile Fracture (Ductile Rupture)
Stages-
1) After onset of necking, cavities form, usually at inclusions at
second-phase particles, in the necked region because the
geometrical changes induce hydrostatic tensile stresses.

2) The cavities grow, and further growth leads to their coalesce

resulting in formation of crack that grows outward in
direction perpendicular to the application of stress.

3) Final failure involves rapid crack propagation at about 45º to

Ductile
the fracture isaxis.
tensile not particularly
This angleimportantrepresents
in terms of mechanical behavior because
the direction ofit usually
is associated with good toughness.
maximum shear stress that causes shear slip in the final stage.
Department of Mechanical Engineering, KUET
 Ductile Fracture in pressure equipment
• Most structural equipments are made of ductile materials and
failure will occur with a large plastic deformation. The ductile
rupture (or ductile fracture) is the one of the most important
failure mode in pressure equipment. And the wall thickness is,
in most cases, determined to prevent this mode of failure.

ｔ＝（ＰＤ）／（２ σ ）

Here, t = Thickness, P = Internal pressure, D = Diameter, σ =

Allowable stress

Department of Mechanical Engineering, KUET

 Ductile Fracture Characteristics
•Occurs under mechanical stress (Load
controlled)

•Needs the extension of high stress region

(global or local stress)

•Occurs at the maximum stress in the case of

cyclic load

•Include large plastic deformation

•Fracture mostly intergranular

• Materials with FCC crystal structure are expected to experience
ductile fracture
Department of Mechanical Engineering, KUET
 Ductile Fracture Characteristics
Cup and cone type fracture

Department of Mechanical Engineering, KUET

 Brittle Fracture
Brittle Fracture is the sudden, very rapid cracking of equipment
under stress where the material exhibited little or no evidence of
ductility or plastic degradation before the fracture occurs.  It
occurs, often at unpredictable levels of stress, by rapid crack
propagation. The direction of crack propagation is very nearly
perpendicular to the direction of applied tensile stress.

Glass is the most typical brittle material. Some cast irons are also
considered a brittle material. Under some circumstances some
metals that are usually ductile will fail in a brittle manner,
possibly with catastrophic results.

Department of Mechanical Engineering, KUET

 Brittle Fracture

In analogy to ductile fracture, as supported by number of detailed experiments,

the brittle fracture in metals is believed to take place in three stages –

(1) plastic deformation that causes dislocation pile-ups at obstacles,

(2) micro-crack nucleation as a result of build-up of shear stresses,

(3) eventual crack propagation under applied stress aided by stored elastic
energy.

Department of Mechanical Engineering, KUET

 Brittle Fracture

The fracture surface of a brittle failure is usually reasonably

smooth (granular and shiny). The crack propagates through the
material by a process called cleavage.

Department of Mechanical Engineering, KUET

 Brittle Fracture
This crack propagation corresponds to successive and repeated
breaking to atomic bonds along specific crystallographic planes,
and hence called cleavage fracture.

Department of Mechanical Engineering, KUET

 Brittle Fracture Characteristics
 The brittle fracture sometimes occurs at very low stress

 The propagation of brittle crack is a trans-granular type (BCC and HCP)

 The brittle fracture is likely to occur at low temperature

 The brittle fracture occurs under either mechanical stress or thermal

stress.

 In general, the initial point of brittle fracture is the point of local stress
or concentrated stress.

 The brittle fracture is likely to occur when the stresses are under plane
strain condition or tri-axial stress conditions more than under a plane
stress condition. The risk of brittle fracture becomes lower if a plate is
thinner.
 Fracture surface is more granular and shiny
Department of Mechanical Engineering, KUET
 Differences Between Brittle and Ductile Fracture

Brittle fracture shall be avoided as it may occur

without warning!

Department of Mechanical Engineering, KUET

 Ductile-to-Brittle Transition
The boundary between a ductile and brittle fracture is arbitrary and depends on
the situation being considered. A change from the ductile to brittle type of
fracture is promoted by a decrease in temperature, an increase in the rate of
loading, and the presence of complex state of stress (for example, due to a notch).

The ductile-brittle transition is

exhibited in bcc metals, such as
low carbon steel, which become
brittle at low temperature or at
very high strain rates. Fcc
metals, however, generally
remain ductile at low
temperatures.

Department of Mechanical Engineering, KUET

 Progressive deformation  Ratcheting

 Ratcheting is a plastic deformation which is progressive in

one direction with cyclic loading. The typical behavior of
this deformation is a thermal ratcheting.

 If a structure accumulates successively higher levels of

plastic strain on every load cycle it is said to be “ratcheting”.
The increment of strain between corresponding points on
successive cycles is the ratchet strain per cycle.

 This behavior was found in the power boiler tubes which are
subjected to serious cyclic thermal loading. The diameter of
the tubes increased gradually with operation, resulting in a
burst accident
Department of Mechanical Engineering, KUET
 Ratcheting due to seismic loading

• Ratcheting is the cycling accumulation of plastic deformation

due to combination of 1 primary and 2 secondary load
Dead load no
1 progressive
deformation
1 2

Seismic ground
2 acceleration no
progressive Progressive deformation which
deformation
may lead to failure

22
 Theory of ratcheting
Ratchet diagram by
Bree Diagram
Yamashita et. al.

Primary membrane +
Primary bending +
Cyclic secondary bending
Cyclic secondary bending

J. BREE,
T. “Elastic-plastic
Yamashita, K. Tsukimori,behaviour
M. N, K.ofIwata,
thin tubes
and A.subjected
Imazu, “AtoSimplified
internal pressure
Method and intermittent
of Evaluating high-heat
Ratcheting in fluxes
Bellowswith
andapplication
a Test of itsto fast-
23
nuclear-reactor
Validation,” Int. J.fuel elements,”
Pres. Ves. Pip.,J.vol.
Strain
42,Anal. Eng. Des.,1990.
pp. 263–285, vol. 2, no. 3, pp. 226–238, Jul. 1967.
 Understanding Ratchet Occurrence condition

0.003 Ratchet at 1250 Gal

Not Ratchet at 1000 Gal
Strain (mm/mm)

0.002

0.001

0.000
0 5 10 15 20
No of Cycle

Strain-number of cycle graph to

understand the occurrence of ratcheting Stress distribution to understand the
occurrence of ratcheting

24
Ratcheting analysis results for beam

5
2 fn
4 1.75 fn
1.5 fn
3
0.5 fn
Y

2 1 fn

0
0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5
X

Inelastic calculation results for ratcheting

Different lines represents the ratchet occurrence conditions at

different frequencies
25