A possible link between brittle and ductile failure by viewing fracture as a topological defect

A continuum model of fracture that describes, in principle, the propagation and interaction of arbitrary distributions of cracks and voids with evolving topology without a “fracture criterion” is developed. It involves a “law of motion” for crack tips, primarily as a kinematical consequence coupled...

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Main Author: Acharya, Amit
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Académie des sciences 2020-10-01
Series:Comptes Rendus. Mécanique
Subjects:
Online Access:https://comptes-rendus.academie-sciences.fr/mecanique/articles/10.5802/crmeca.14/
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author Acharya, Amit
author_facet Acharya, Amit
author_sort Acharya, Amit
collection DOAJ
description A continuum model of fracture that describes, in principle, the propagation and interaction of arbitrary distributions of cracks and voids with evolving topology without a “fracture criterion” is developed. It involves a “law of motion” for crack tips, primarily as a kinematical consequence coupled with thermodynamics. Fundamental kinematics endow the crack tip with a topological charge. This allows the association of a kinematical conservation law for the charge, resulting in a fundamental evolution equation for the crack-tip field and, in turn, the crack field. The vectorial crack field degrades the elastic modulus in a physically justified anisotropic manner. The mathematical structure of this conservation law allows an additive “free” gradient of a scalar field in the evolution of the crack field. We associate this naturally emerging scalar field with the porosity that arises in the modeling of ductile failure. Thus, porosity-rate gradients affect the evolution of the crack field, which then naturally degrades the elastic modulus, and it is through this fundamental mechanism that spatial gradients in porosity growth affect the strain energy density and the stress-carrying capacity of the material and, as a dimensional consequence related to fundamental kinematics, introduce a length scale in the model. A key result of this work is that brittle fracture is energy-driven while ductile fracture is stress-driven. Under overall shear loadings where the mean stress vanishes or is compressive, the shear strain energy can still drive shear fracture in ductile materials.
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spelling doaj.art-3da06b4bffa74c4eb4105dd54b074fb12023-10-24T14:20:45ZengAcadémie des sciencesComptes Rendus. Mécanique1873-72342020-10-01348427528410.5802/crmeca.1410.5802/crmeca.14A possible link between brittle and ductile failure by viewing fracture as a topological defectAcharya, Amit0Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, and Center for Nonlinear Analysis, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USAA continuum model of fracture that describes, in principle, the propagation and interaction of arbitrary distributions of cracks and voids with evolving topology without a “fracture criterion” is developed. It involves a “law of motion” for crack tips, primarily as a kinematical consequence coupled with thermodynamics. Fundamental kinematics endow the crack tip with a topological charge. This allows the association of a kinematical conservation law for the charge, resulting in a fundamental evolution equation for the crack-tip field and, in turn, the crack field. The vectorial crack field degrades the elastic modulus in a physically justified anisotropic manner. The mathematical structure of this conservation law allows an additive “free” gradient of a scalar field in the evolution of the crack field. We associate this naturally emerging scalar field with the porosity that arises in the modeling of ductile failure. Thus, porosity-rate gradients affect the evolution of the crack field, which then naturally degrades the elastic modulus, and it is through this fundamental mechanism that spatial gradients in porosity growth affect the strain energy density and the stress-carrying capacity of the material and, as a dimensional consequence related to fundamental kinematics, introduce a length scale in the model. A key result of this work is that brittle fracture is energy-driven while ductile fracture is stress-driven. Under overall shear loadings where the mean stress vanishes or is compressive, the shear strain energy can still drive shear fracture in ductile materials.https://comptes-rendus.academie-sciences.fr/mecanique/articles/10.5802/crmeca.14/DuctileBrittleFracturePorosityCrackTopological defect
spellingShingle Acharya, Amit
A possible link between brittle and ductile failure by viewing fracture as a topological defect
Comptes Rendus. Mécanique
Ductile
Brittle
Fracture
Porosity
Crack
Topological defect
title A possible link between brittle and ductile failure by viewing fracture as a topological defect
title_full A possible link between brittle and ductile failure by viewing fracture as a topological defect
title_fullStr A possible link between brittle and ductile failure by viewing fracture as a topological defect
title_full_unstemmed A possible link between brittle and ductile failure by viewing fracture as a topological defect
title_short A possible link between brittle and ductile failure by viewing fracture as a topological defect
title_sort possible link between brittle and ductile failure by viewing fracture as a topological defect
topic Ductile
Brittle
Fracture
Porosity
Crack
Topological defect
url https://comptes-rendus.academie-sciences.fr/mecanique/articles/10.5802/crmeca.14/
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