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    ‘Mechaaics of Materials 9 (1990) 83-91 Elsevier ON TOUGHENING BY MICROCRACKS a David K.M. SHUM and John W. HUTCHINSON Division of Applied Sciences, Harcard Uniersiy, Cambridge, MA 02138, US.A. Received 11 November 1989 ‘This study examines the phenomenon of microcrack toughening under the premise that toughening must entail mutual shielding of the main crack and the microcracks. Maximum toughening corresponds to the macrotack//microcrack ‘configuration that minimizes the maximum energy releate rate (oF stress intensity factor) among. the various crack tips Explicit results for the maximum (ughening achievable and the corresponding optimal configuration are presented for a plane strain model of a macrocrack inthe presence of either one oF two microcracks. 1. Introduction Some brittle single phase polycrystalline ‘materials display a macroscopic fracture energy ‘which is many times the fracture energy for clea- vvage of the single crystals or the fracture energy of grain boundary separation. Thus, even in the ab- sence of any plastic deformation, the polyerystal can be much tougher than its constituent crystals or its grain boundaries. A number of toughening, ‘mechanisms have been suggested to account for this rather counterintuitive phenomenon. Each mechanism proposed is connected one way or another to heterogeneity on the scale of the grains. They include crack deflection, microcrack shield- ing, and crack bridging by uncracked grains. Quantitative toughening predictions for these ‘mechanisms are not yet firmly established and a consensus on conditions when one mechanism is expected to dominate has not been reached. This paper focuses on microcracking and ad- dresses the question of the maximum toughening which can be expected from this mechanism, Con- siderable theoretical work has recently been de- voted to the phenomenon of microcrack shielding in brittle materials. Some studies approach the problem on a continuum scale (Evans and Faber, 1980; Hoagland and Embury, 1980; Hutchinson, 1987; Ortiz, 1988) where a profusion of micro- cracks are imagined to participate in the process (0167-6636 /90/$03.80 © 1990 ~ Elsesie Science Publishers BY. of shielding the main crack. Other studies (Rose, 1986; Rubinstein, 1986; Hori and Nemat-Nasser, 1987; Kachanov, 1987; Montagut and Kachanov, 1988; Gong and Horii, 1989) treat the microcracks as discrete entities interacting with the main crack tip. There are two potential contributions to toughening from microcracking, One is crack tip stress redistribution due to the release of residual stress when a microcrack is nucleated. This contri- bution is rather similar to plastic deformation at a crack tip in a metal or to dilatational transforma- tion at the tip of a erack in a ceramic. The residual stress is present and varies from grain to grain when the crystals have thermal-expansion ani- sotropy. The other contribution results in stress redistribution at the main tip due to microcrack- ing in the absence of residual stress. In the con- tinuum approach this redistribution results due to the lowering of the stiffness of the microcracked material. In the discrete approach the redistribu- tion occurs directly from the interaction of the microcracks with the main crack. It is this latter contribution which is of concern in this paper. he contribution due to release of residual stress is reasonably well in hand (Hutchinson, 1987) and does not present any major computational diff- culties Specifically, in this paper, the interaction be- tween one or two microcracks located near the tip of a macrocrack is considered. Optimal configura- 8 DAM. Shum. J.W. Huchinson / On toughening by microcracks tions are found which minimize the maximum energy release rates for all the erack tips involved. Although the outcome of a highly idealized model, these results supply insight into the maximum amount of toughening which can be expected from this contribution of microcracking. Prior work has primarily focussed on shielding of the main crack with no regard for any attendant amplification of the energy release rates of the microcracks. A toughening enhancement requires the mutual shielding of the main tip and the tips of the microcracks, otherwise crack advance will occur from one of the microcracks. This is the motiva- tion for the scarch for the configuration with the lowest possible maximum energy release rate ofall the crack tips involved. “This study is highly idealized in that attention is limited to plane strain cracks in an isotropic elastic solid. Mierocracks in a brite polycrystal usually nucleate on « grain boundary facet and arrest at a junction, or they may form on a crystal cleavage plane and arrest at the first. grain boundary they encounter. In either case, the het- ferogeneity at the scale of the grains sets the size and orientation of the microcracks, and nucleation usually assisted by residual stresses. Neverthe- less, the results of this study do isolate an essential Fig. 1, Zone of reduced stiffness surrounding the tip of a semi-infinite crack: (a) annular reduced stlfness zone, and (b) reduced sffness ron extends all the way to erack tp. aspect of the interaction between a macrocrack and microcracks as it pertains to toughening. ‘A rationale for limiting attention to the one or two microcracks nearest the main crack tip can be found from both continuum and discrete interac- tion theories. Calculations using large arrays of discrete microcracks interacting with the macro: crack (Montagut and Kachanov, 1988) suggest that the locations of the nearest microcracks largely determine whether shielding or antshield- ing oceurs. The details of the distribution of the microcracks outside the immediate tip region ap- pear to be less important. The same conclusion can be drawn from continuum studies of the effect of zones of less stiff material surrounding a mac- rocrack tip (Hutchinson, 1987). Consider the semi-infinite crack in Fig. 1a which is surrounded by an annular circular zone with a reduced shear modulus and an altered Poisson's ratio >. The crack is subject to a remote mode I loading char- acterized by K?, and the stress intensity factor at the tip within the annular zone (with modulus j and ») is Ki. To lowest order in the differenees in moduli, '— p, and Poisson's ratio, 5», Kim KP aay In other words, the annular zone of less stiff material surrounding the tip has neither a shield- ing nor an antishielding effect to lowest order. If the less stiff zone extends all the way to the tip such that the tip lies in the less stiff material, as shown in Fig. 1b, the crack tip stress intensity factor is altered according to Hiss KP aa->) to lowest order in the moduli and Poisson's ratio differences (Hutchinson, 1987), Thus, it is the inner core of less stiff material, as opposed to the surrounding annular region, which mainly in- fluences the stress level at the crack tip. Note also that the size of the circular zone does not enter into (1.2). Increasing the zone size does not alter the shielding, D.KM. Shon, JW. Hutchinson / On toughening by merocracks 8s 2. Formulation of the problem Consider the configuration in Fig. 2a where single microcrack of length 2a is positioned near the tip of the main erack. The tip of the main crack is subject to a mode I stress intensity factor IK? in the absence of the microcrack. When the size and distance of the mierocrack from the tip is very small compared to the length of the macro- crack, one can consider an asymptotic problem Whore the semi-infinite main crack is remotely stressed consistent with the classical mode I crack tip field Ke = pe (0) where (r, 6) ate plane polar coordinates. The mi- crocrack is arbitrarily positioned as characterized by the two angles, a and w, and the distance, d, of its center from the main tip. Let my) a Kear) @2) » S Fig, 2. Macroctac /mirocrack configurations: (2) one miceo- crack and (b) two symmetric microcracks. a » be the energy release rate of the main tip in the absence of the microcrack, where E is Young's modulus and y is Poisson's ratio. It will be re ferred to as the applied energy release rate, De- note the energy release rates of the three tips in the interaction problem in Fig. 2a by Y,, %p and. Y. By dimensional considerations and the fact that a linear, plane strain problem is being analyzed, one concludes that %/9p~ S(d/a, a8) (23) With a functional dependence on the same varia- bles for %p/%, and %/%q. Similarly the mode 1 or mode Il stress intensity factor of any of the three tips must depend on the same three nondi- mensional position variables according to K/KE = 8(d/a, a) 24) Thus, a small microcrack close to the tip has the same effect as a large microcrack farther from the tip with the same d/a ratio. More to the point for application to polyerystals, the influence of a mi: crocrack of fixed size (e.. the size of a grain facet) is larger the closer itis to the macrocrack tip. This observation is clearly related to the special role of the microcracks nearest the tip noted in the Intro- duction. The two-mierocrack configuration in Fig. 2b will also be considered. In this case the cracks will be restricted to be symmetrically positioned with respect to the semisinfinite main crack. Thus, by symmetry, only results for tips A, B and C need to be considered. The solution to the interaction problem is ob- tained by numerical solution to an exact integral equation formulation similar to that used by Hori and Nemat-Nasser (1987), Kachanov (1987), and Gong and Horii (1989). This formulation and the reduction for numerical analysis is given in the Appendix. The solution procedure leads to highly Accurate results for the stress intensity factors and energy release rates. High accuracy is needed for the present minimization problem. Various ap- proximate solutions, or solution procedures, have been proposed for the interaction problem. These appreximations all tended to lose accuracy when d/a<1 and the microcrack is located off the plane of the main erack as in Fig. 2a. In particu e D.KM. Shion, JW. Hutchinson / On toughening by meroraoks lar, they have large errors for the optimal crack configurations reported in the next section. ‘Two minimax problems are considered in this paper: Problem No. 1 Minimize the maximum of (%/%. %/% G-/) with respect to all admissible d/a, a and . Admissible values of the position variables are those for which the cracks do not intersect. Problem No. 2 Minimize the maximum of (K(/K?, KP/K?, KE/K2) with respect to all admissible d/a, a and Solutions to the minimax problems are carried cout using the Least Pth algorithm (Bandler and Charalambous, 1972) coupled with a Simplex search method (Press et a, 1986). In the terminol- ‘ogy of optimization, the objective function to be ‘minimized is either the maximum energy release rate or the maximum mode I stress intensity factor among all the erack tips. 3. Solutions, optimal solutions and inferences ‘As an illustrative example, consider the special subset of configurations for the two-microcrack problem wherein the microcracks are parallel to the main crack (a0) and d/a is fixed at the value 2. The dependence of the energy release ae Fig. 3. Variation of energy’ Félease rates with w fot d/a=1,2 and a ‘Table 1 Optimal solutions for one- and wo-microcrack configurations (objective function minizzed) ‘One micoorack Two miouacks cmmmeem 6 ; = isa tess spa a mot ta ive 1 im tae a 046s 049 ono os % Soo mma a Oass Ost OST Ki 06s 062 sk 0486 AP 0.031 0.025 0.023 0.020 a 06 0683 Oats Mas Kt 002 0058 om 0000 “Ki 0.017 0.007 —0,003 0.008 skh 02k ozs 025209 * Boson era rates ofthe tips on « is shown in Fig. 3. When the ‘microcrack is ahead of the mactocrack (« < 60°) the energy release rate of the macrocrack tip is amplified above the applied value. Within this subset of configurations, the maximom shielding of the main tip A occurs when @= 130° with Y, = 0.325. However, in this configuration the en- ergy release rate of tips C of the microcracks is Target than that of the main crack. Maximum ‘mutval shielding (Le. the minimum maximum en- ergy release rate) in this subset of configurations urs when w = 140° with J, = 9. ‘The results of the solutions to the two minimax problems over the full range af admissible d/a, a and © are presented in Table 1. The optimal configurations are shown in Fig. 4. Note that the differences between the optimal solutions and configurations are very small. Moreover, the opti- ‘mal position parameters characterizing the one- ‘icrocrack problem are almost the sanse as for the twormicrocrack problem. For Problem No. 1 where the objective function is based on the energy re- Tease rate the optimal solution gives 94/9,~ %/%,~ 0.468 (one microcrack) (a) 289 (two microcracks) Gf y= F/G = \ Fig. 4. Optimal one and two-microcrack configurations. ‘The objective function space is relatively flat in the neighborhood of the minimum solution. This holds true for each of the two objective functions and for the one- or two-microcrack problems. Thus there is a range of configurations about those listed in Table I for which the values of 3 and % are essentially the optimal values, For the same reason, the values of position variables for the optimal configurations are less accurate than the optimal values of the objective function, ie. ork. ‘The optimal results are not entirely unexpected. Consider, for example, the configuration in the insert in Fig. 5 where a single microcrack is paral- Jel to the main crack and the two lead tips, A and C, are equally extended. The variation of the energy release rates of the three tips with ¢/a is shown, As can be understood from elementary considerations, the applied energy release rate be- ‘comes equally partitioned between each of the lead tips when c/a 1 and 8/9 > G/M /2 a8 ¢/a+0 (G3) cla Fig. 5. Variation of energy release rates with ¢/a for a single ‘microcrack parallel to main crack with aligned leading tps This arrangement is not far from optimal for the ‘one microerack case. ‘The two-microcrack case is not so easily under- stood. The analogous arrangement of two parallel microcracks has a variation of energy release rates 10 ola Fig. 6. Variation of energy release rates with ¢/a for two ‘icroeracks parallel to main crack with aligned leading tps 88 BKM. Shum J.W. Hutchison / On toughening by microcracks shown in Fig, 6, In this 88, the applied energy release rate is not equally partitioned as ¢/a— 0. Instead the main tip is shielded such that G/F =0A and Y./G 2045 as c/a (GA) ‘This configuration is quite far from optima, ‘The optimal values of the mutually shielded tips in (3.1) and (3.2) suggest that the largest amount of microcrack toughening (excluding the contribution from the release of residual stress) that can be expected is 2 or 3 times the “intrinsic” toughness measured in surface energy units. That if crack advance of each of the tips is controlled by a critical value of energy release rate, Scurrs then there exist one- or two-microcrack configura- tions for which the critical applied energy release rate, %, is 2 oF 3 times Yonyy. Whether optimal, (of near optimal, configurations can actually con- trol the overall toughness in a statistical sense along a crack front is an open issue. ‘The above conclusion is not only tempered by the fact that the calculation is a two dimensional cone. As discussed in the Introduction, it is also premised on the assumption that shielding is dominated by the microcracks closest to the ti {In addition, the assumption of an “intrinsic toughness, Year. is obviously a simplification. Local conditions such as geometry, elastic ani- sotropy mismatches, and residual stresses at a grain boundary junction or grain boundary where tip has arrested will influence the critical energy release rate for that tip at that location. The manner in which all these influences work 10 establish the polycrystalline toughness is ex- tcemely complex and difficult to model. The pre- sent results, though highly idealized, provide a reference for the effect of microcracking of. tough- ness, excluding the Contributions from the release of residual stress. Acknowledgements This work was supported by the Materials Re- search Laboratory (Grant NSF-DMR-86-14003) and DARPA University Research Initiative (Sub- agreement P.O. #VB38639-0 with the University of California, Santa Barbara, ON® Prime Con- tract NO0014-86-K-0753) and the Division of Ap- plied Sciences, Harvard University References Bander, 1.W. and C. Chatlatbous (1972), Practical Least Puh ‘optimization of networks, LEEE Trans, Mirowave MTT-20, 4 Evans, AG, and KT. Fuber (1980), Toughening of ceramics by circumferential microcracking, J- Amer. Coram. Soe. 64 39 Gong, S.and H. Hori (1989), General soltion tothe problem of microcracks near the up ofa main erack, J- Meck Phys ‘Solids 37,2. Hoagland, KG. and 1D. Embury (1980). A tweatment of inelastic deformation around a erick xp de to microcrack ling, J. Amer. Cram Soe. 63, 408, Hori, Mand 8. Nemat-Nasser (1987, Interacting micro-racks eat the tip in the process zone of a macro-

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