On the fracture toughness of advanced materials

Journal Article · Mon Nov 24 04:00:00 EST 2008 · Advanced Materials

OSTI ID:952579

Launey, Maximilien E; Ritchie, Robert O

Few engineering materials are limited by their strength; rather they are limited by their resistance to fracture or fracture toughness. It is not by accident that most critical structures, such as bridges, ships, nuclear pressure vessels and so forth, are manufactured from materials that are comparatively low in strength but high in toughness. Indeed, in many classes of materials, strength and toughness are almost mutually exclusive. In the first instance, such resistance to fracture is a function of bonding and crystal structure (or lack thereof), but can be developed through the design of appropriate nano/microstructures. However, the creation of tough microstructures in structural materials, i.e., metals, polymers, ceramics and their composites, is invariably a compromise between resistance to intrinsic damage mechanisms ahead of the tip of a crack (intrinsic toughening) and the formation of crack-tip shielding mechanisms which principally act behind the tip to reduce the effective 'crack-driving force' (extrinsic toughening). Intrinsic toughening is essentially an inherent property of a specific microstructure; it is the dominant form of toughening in ductile (e.g., metallic) materials. However, for most brittle (e.g., ceramic) solids, and this includes many biological materials, it is largely ineffective and toughening conversely must be developed extrinsically, by such shielding mechanisms as crack bridging. From a fracture mechanics perspective, this results in toughening in the form of rising resistance-curve behavior where the fracture resistance actually increases with crack extension. The implication of this is that in many biological and high-strength advanced materials, toughness is developed primarily during crack growth and not for crack initiation. This is an important realization yet is still rarely reflected in the way that toughness is measured, which is invariably involves the use of single-value (crack-initiation) parameters such as the fracture toughness K{sub Ic}.

• Research Organization: Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA (US)
• Sponsoring Organization: Materials Sciences Division
• DOE Contract Number: AC02-05CH11231
• OSTI ID: 952579
• Report Number(s): LBNL-1467E
• Journal Information: Advanced Materials, Journal Name: Advanced Materials
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE
ACCIDENTS
BIOLOGICAL MATERIALS
BONDING
BUILDING MATERIALS
CERAMICS
CRACK PROPAGATION
CRYSTAL STRUCTURE
DESIGN
FRACTURE MECHANICS
FRACTURE PROPERTIES
FRACTURES
MICROSTRUCTURE
POLYMERS
PRESSURE VESSELS
SHIELDING