Enhancing toughness through geometric control of the process zone

Abstract

Material architecture provides an opportunity to alter and control the fracture process zone shape and volume by redistributing the local stresses at a crack tip. Properly designed structures can enlarge the plastic zone and enhance the effective toughness. Here, we use a pillar array as a model structure to demonstrate how variations in geometry at a crack tip control the size and shape of the plastic zone and can be used to engineer the effective toughness. Elastic–plastic finite element simulations are used to quantify how the pillar width, spacing, and height can be varied to tailor the size and shape of the plastic zone. A set of analytical mechanics models that accurately estimate the shape, volume, and resulting toughness as a function of the base material properties and geometry are also presented. A case study extends the analysis to sets of non-regular pillar arrays to illustrate how architecture can be used to alter toughness along the crack path.