Science of cracks : fracture mechanics

Oterkus, Erkan (2022) Science of cracks : fracture mechanics. IES Journal of Engineering, 161. pp. 38-44. 1710.

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Abstract

Although we may not always recognise it, cracks are important part of our daily lives. Cracks are also very important in the discipline of engineering. We can make predictions about whether cracks will initiate in a particular structure, when and which direction that they can propagate, with at what speed that they can propagate, if they will branch or not, and if they will stop or not once they propagate. The scientific field which focuses on cracks is named as “fracture mechanics”. In this paper, a brief history of fracture mechanics is given starting from its early days. Then, some important concepts of fracture mechanics are highlighted such as fracture modes, stress intensity factor and energy release rate. Since numerical tools are widely used for engineering analysis, several numerical techniques developed for fracture analysis and implemented within finite element analysis framework are discussed. Finally, an emerging approach, peridynamics, is briefly introduced and its applications for different material systems, loading and environmental conditions are summarised.

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