Fracture mechanics

• Use stress-functions to solve plane elastic problems.
• Determine stress intensity factors for cracks.
• Use linear elastic fracture mechanics (both stress and energy criteria) to predict crack initiation and growth in brittle materials.
• Estimate the size of plastic zones at crack tips.
• Establish the applicability of linear elastic fracture mechanics for a given problem.
• Calculate the J-integral and crack opening displacement in elastic-plastic materials and use these to determine critical loads with respect to crack growth.
• Determine the direction of crack propagation.
• Determine critical load under fully plastic conditions
• Analyze crack growth under cyclic loading.

Stress functions (Airy’s and Westergaard’s), stress concentrations, stress singularities at crack tips, linear-elastic fracture mechanics, energy methods, plasticity at crack tips, the J-integral, the HRR-field, cohesive zone modeling, criteria for the direction of crack extension, fatigue during cyclic loading, Paris law.

41502/41534, Knowledge of beam theory as well as theory of elasticity including transformation of stresses and strains

Lectures and problem solving