Mechanical Behavior of Materials (Part - II)

Prof. Sudhanshu Shekhar Singh

Department of Materials Science and Engineering
Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur

Lecture - 11
Fracture Mechanisms

Welcome back class to our course on Mechanical Behavior of Materials Part - 2. So, in the last
class we discussed about fracture toughness measurement using ASTM E 399 ok. So, we have
already completed the part. I wanted to talk about fracture mechanics and we have mostly dealt
with LEFM linear elastic fracture mechanics. I already mentioned that the concept related to EPFM
is not part of dispute.

So, we are not going to talk about that ok. So, today we will start talking about Fracture
Mechanisms in metals and alloys and eventually in this course we will talks a little bit about
ceramics as well as composite materials also ok.

(Refer Slide Time: 01:07)

So, let us begin mechanisms ok. So, what are the mechanisms for failure? So, we start using the
concept of uniaxial tensile testing which you are already familiar. So, if I have these two plots let
us say you have s and e, where s is engineering stress and e is engineering strain and in one of the
plot is this and another plot is something like this not up to the scale ok, but the nature is like this.

So, not up to the scale, but the nature is like this. So, this one is brittle material and other one is
ductile ok. So, these two things you already know, we have discussed this in the previous course
mechanical behavior materials part 1. So, let us go into more depth of you know failure in these
type of materials and how the fracture surfaces are going to look like ok.
(Refer Slide Time: 02:44)

So, type of failure in uniaxial tensile test. So, what are the different types of failures you can have?
So, the first one is. So, basically what you are doing you have a specimen right say dot one a
specimen ok and then you are pulling it. So, that is what uniaxial tension is about right. So, what I
am drawing here is the part of dog bone specimen that is the guest session where we are about to
see the fracture right, you know that typically not typically it has to be in the guest session right
during tensile test.

So, if your failure occurs like this like flat. So, you it is the failure is occurring along the plane we
call it cleavage plane and if this is the case we have brittle ok. So, the material is brittle. Now, the
second case can be you know something like this. Remember this is the guest session we are talking
about. So, these under uniaxial tension and these planes where you are going to see a slip these are
slip planes ok. This is a typical case of shear ok so, this is second case.

Now the third one is something like this ok. So, you have making and then the failure occurs at a
point this is called rupture ok. So, failure is occurring at a point after necking and the last one
which I think you already know is something like this. So, you have necking during tensile testing
and then you see a typical cup and cone failure something like this ok. So, this is a typical case of
cup and cone fracture ok.

So, the two sides are there when you do tensile testing. So, one side will look like as a cup and
another sign other another side will look as it is a cone ok. So, in this case if I see it. So, this is like
cup and this surface here is like a cone ok. So, we call it as cup and cone fracture. Now, in which
case you are going to observe these features or not this features this phenomena ok and remember
that all these three are related to ductile failure ok.

So, now when we talk about cleavage failure in brittle material here you are not going to see any
deformation or even if the deformation is there it is very little. So, little or no deformation and this
can happen in single as well as polycrystalline ok. Now, let us talk about the shear. So, here you
are going to see shear fracture of ductile single crystal ok.
So, first of all it is a ductile failure and it will happen when you have a single crystalline material
ok. So, along if you have a single crystal some planes are more favorable towards deformation
right. Remember the seismic criteria ok so, in that on those planes you are going to have slip
occurring ok and that will lead to the shear. So, shear fracture of ductile single crystal .

The third one which is the rupture where the failure is occurring at a point after necking has
occurred this will also occur in ductile material, but it is of pure nature ok. So, completely ductile
fracture of poly crystalline and this is for pure metal. Now, the last one cup and cone fracture this
is also a ductile failure ok and for mostly polycrystalline ok.

So, these are n we call it also for commercially commercial alloys you can see that. So, if it is pure
metal you are going to see rupture, if it is in commercial alloys where you have presence of second
phase particle second phases wait I am going to discuss about that then you are going to see cup
and cone fracture.

So, we are going to eventually discuss the mechanism of formation of cup and cone in a poly
crystalline commercial alloy ok, we will do that eventually. So, this is the type of failure you
observe when you do tensile testing.

(Refer Slide Time: 10:48)

So, there another way of classification of fracture and this is from book of Dieter. So, fracture can
be classified based on the four characteristics ok. So, the first is crystallographic mode, second is
appearance of fracture surfaces, third is strain to fracture or strain to failure and the last one is
crack path, what is the path of crack propagation ok. So, these are the four ways of fracture can be
classified.

So, let me make a table. So, that you can understand how we are defining a different class of
fracture you using these four criteria. So, first is let us say behaviour ok, then the terms we are
using. So, crystallographic mode so, shear and then we know if it is shear it is ductile behaviour
ok and if it is cleavage then it is brittle we just saw this right. So, if you have a shear then it is
ductile type, if it is cleavage then it is brittle type. So, that is what I mean by crystallographic mode
ok.

Now, the second one is appearance of fracture surface. So, it can be fibrous or it can be granular
bright. So, if you fracture surface is fibrous dull nature then we typically say energy has been
absorbed. So, it is ductile nature if it is granular and bright then we say it is brittle nature ok. So,
that is how we define when we look at the fracture surface ok.

Third is strain to fracture or strain to failure. So, if you remember I drew stress strain plot and you
know that if strain to failure is small right then it will typically lead to the brittle one and if it is
very large it will typically lead to ductile one that is the characteristic. If you remember this
particular plot here right so same thing. So, that is what I mean by strain to failure so, if it is ductile
then large amount of plastic deformation and if it is brittle very little or no plastic deformation ok.
So, that is what I mean when I say strain to failure or classification of fracture.

And the last one is crack path. So, you already have generated a crack now how this crack is
propagating under applied stress. So, that will determine the classification of fracture. So, in this
case we have either trans-granular or inter-granular. So, here when we talk about the trans-granular
crack path; that means, crack is propagating through inside the brain ok. So, crack propagates
through grains. So, this is trans-granular or sometimes we call it as intra granular ok.

Now, the other one is inter granular. So, here crack is propagating through grain boundaries. So,
crack propagates through grain boundaries ok. So, this is how we can classify the fracture and this
is I have taken from book of deter. So, now, let me make a schematic. So, that you can understand
better what do I mean by trans-granular, inter-granular etcetera. So, you can have different and
again remember we are talking about uniaxial tensile test now ok.

(Refer Slide Time: 17:44)

So, you have two conditions something like this ok. So, you are under uniaxial tension and then
these two are poly crystalline materials. So, you are going to have different grains right. So, in the
first one the crack is propagating through the grains ok inside the grains, let us say you have these
three grains here. So, crack is propagating through these grains ok.

So, this is trans-granular, in the second one it is propagating through the grain boundary ok. So,
these are your grains here something like this ok. So, these are your grains here I am marking in
purple. So, these are your separate grains and the black lines are your grain boundaries ok.

So, you have a crack which is propagating through the grain boundary. So, this is inter granular
and both are brittle ok, you are not seeing any necking here if you see the fracture is has occurred
without necking you see there is no necking in this region. So, very less plastic deformation and if
it occurs through the grains then we call it transgranular, if it is a thing to the grain boundary we
call it inter granular ok. Now when you see a necking happening or a shear if it is a single crystal
then it is a ductile one right.

So, now let us talk about that part. So, in ductile also you can have trans-granular intergranular
etcetera ok. So, now, I am going to have some necking here. So, let me draw four like this, again
these are schematic ok. So, I have made for schematics here now let me draw grains the blue lines
are your grains ok.

So, if it is transgranular then you are going to see cracking ok inside the grains like this. So, you
are seeing some voids we will see why voids are going to form in ductile failure ok. So, just for
now just see that they are forming voids and these voids are inside the grains also. So, this is a
typical case of transgranular.

Here the voids are forming in case two along the grain boundaries so, this is a typical case of inter
granular ok and these are related to plastic growth of voids. Again we will discuss why voids are
forming and where it should form when we talk about ductile failure here you are seeing rupture
right. So, here you just see necking at a point and the last one is shear localization.

So, shearing along the plain right and all these are related to ductile failure ductile fracture ok. So,
again remember in the first stage you are not seeing in the brittle one you are not seeing necking.
So, very less plastic deformation, but you have both transgranular and intergranular.

In the second case it is all ductile you see necking whether it is pure element or pure metal or
commercial alloys ok and the last one is shear localization where the localization is occurring along
with slip. So, all these are ductile failure ok. So, now, let us talk about the different kind of fracture
mechanisms right. The important ones and then we will discuss them ok.

(Refer Slide Time: 25:27)

So, the 1st one is your ductile fracture, 2nd one is brittle or brittle cleavage fracture and 3rd one is
intergranular fracture. See, when I say brittle failure it can be cleavage it can be intergranular also
ok. So, cleavage is completely different although it will be part of brittle one ok.

So, these are the three dominant fracture micro mechanisms in metals and alloys. So, we will focus
on first 10 second ok. So, we will talk about first the ductile fracture. So, we will talk about ductile
failure first ok. So, now, use again the tensile loading uniaxial tensile testing and see how we
understand the fracture mechanisms ok.

(Refer Slide Time: 27:08)

Ductile fracture: So, as soon as materials reach an instability point, I hope you remember what is
this point during uniaxial tensile loading. So, that is the maximum point right instability criteria
we have discussed this in our course 1. So, here what you observe is that strain hardening is less
than the reduction in area and that is why the curve goes down ok.

So, the increment in the load you are getting from strain hardening that effect is less than the
decrease in the load because of the reduction in cross sectional area right. So, you are getting that
when you are in the instability point and that is why the curve goes down in engineering stress
engineering strain plot ok.

Now, we can have two cases, one is pure metal and another one is commercial metals and alloys.
And there are some characteristics when we have pure metal and commercial metals and alloys
and we do tensile testing we have discussed that already. So, pure metal is going to show what
type of failure? Rupture right, at a point it is going to fail whereas, commercial metal and alloys
they are going to show cup and cone failure ok.

So, here it can neck down the specimen can neck down to a single point ok and you are going to
have very large local strain, because as soon as necking happens you know you are doing tensile
testing right. So, the all the strains are going to be localized in the neck region and remember this
is rupture right. So, you are going to come to a point; that means you are going to have very large
strain in the neck region right.

So, very large local strain and the third characteristic is it can go to nearly 100 percent reduction
in area whereas, when we have commercial metals and alloys you are going to see cup and cone
failure. It is going to fail at a slightly lower strain not slightly it is going to fail at a lower strain as
compared to pure metal ok and this happens because of the void nucleation at inclusions or second
phase particles.

So, if you have pure metal right you are not going to have second phase particles or inclusions I
will show you one or two images of what do I mean by inclusions and second phase particles
specially in aluminium alloy I am going to show you in the next class. So, when you have pure
metal you are not going to have these inclusions and second phase particles. So, you are going to
observe rupture ok it will fail at the single point.

But in commercial metals in alloys because these are commercial alloys you are going to have
inclusions or second phase particles in the matrix from where due to the strain localization voids
are going to nucleate ok and as soon as that happens you can force right that the strain is going to
be lower than what we are going to observe in pure metal we are going to discuss in detail about
that also ok. So, now let me plot stress strain curves for both pure metal and commercial metals in
alloys and then show your comparison with respect to the necking characteristic.

(Refer Slide Time: 32:47)

So, s which is engineering stress and e engineering strain so, we have two plots to say one is this
is for pure metal again not up to the scale typically the elastic regime is much smaller than the
plastic regime ok, but just for understanding I am drawing like that. So, this is the case of pure
metal ok and if I have commercial alloys or metal it will show something like this. So, it is going
to fail much earlier ok. So, this is the case of commercial metals and alloys ok.

So, if I denote this as point ‘B’, this as point ‘C’ and then here you have point ‘A’ here. So, at A
about at A you are going to have necking and I am assuming here that necking is taking place in
both the cases at the same location just for understanding ok. So, now, at point B all your sample
is going to look like and remember you are doing this tensile loading right tensile testing.

So, it is so, we have a dog bone sample and then you are having load ok and we always talk about
this particular region right. So, at point B you are going to have a condition like this something
like this ok. So, this one is your cup, this one is your cone ok, two parts of your sample and at point
𝐶ˈ which corresponds to pure metal you are going to see rupture ok. Now at point ‘A’ and I am
assuming that both the materials here are commercial metals and alloys and pure metal the necking
take place as A at a point A ok.

So, the necking is occurring at point A. So, your sample is going to look something like this right
and this is your neck here ok. So, at point a both the samples are going to have this phenomena or
this characteristic. Now, for commercial metals and alloys after fracture you are going to observe,
see I am given on the left side cup and cone failure whereas, for pure metal you are going to
observe point C which is rupture ok.

So, the strain is going to be higher for pure metal as compared to commercial metals and alloys ok
because point A remains same and at point B you can see you the cross session area is much larger
than what is observed in the case of rupture. So; obviously, the strain to failure is higher in the
case of pure metal ok and this is happening I mentioned because of the presence of second phase
particles or inclusions in the case of commercial metals and alloys.
So, overall ductility in commercial metals and alloys will depend upon the presence of the second
phase particles or inclusions their size morphology and distribution ok. So, ductility in commercial
metals and alloys is limited by volume fraction, size and distribution of second phase particles or
inclusions ok. So, I will stop here and we are going to discuss about ductile fracture mechanisms
further in the next lecture.

Thank you.