Linear and Non-Linear Stress Analysis for the Prediction of Fracture Toughness for Brittle and Ductile Material using ASTM E399 and ASTM E1290 By ANSYS Program package

Abstract

Prediction of fracture toughness value of most the metallic materials is a very important issue to be consider in designing of engineering structural components like pipes, flow tanks and pressure vessel where it can be used in the evaluation of critical crack length that is consider very important factor in non-destructive testing because during inspections of these components, the critical crack length is being compared with the minimum allowable flow size. Fracture toughness value can be predicted by using two different types of experimental tests such as ASTM-E399 (which is used to predict fracture toughness under plane strain condition for brittle materials which undergo to small plastic deformation) and ASTM-E1290 (which is used to predict fracture toughness for ductile materials which undergo to large plastic deformation). These experimental tests utilize specimens such as compact tension specimen CT and three-point bend specimen SENB which must be pre-cracked. However, manufacturing of pre-cracked in metallic structural components before testing is expensive and time-consuming process, thus in the current study, fracture toughness will be predicted by using economized method in both time and cost that is the finite elements method by using ANSYS PROGRAM Where, a three-dimensional model has been designed by using two different types of elements (plane-82) and (solid-95).Firstly, two-dimensional model mesh will be idealized by using element type (plane-82) due to ANSYSY PROGRAM can pick–up singularity for two dimensional model only, but in order to obtain more accurate results, a three dimensional model will be designed by utilizing Sweep Model with restriction with ANSYSY abilities in the treatment of fracture mechanics problems for three dimensional model analysis where the element length must be ranging from 1to4 in all directions. In elastic region, the fracture toughness is been predicted directly from ANSAYS PROGRAM using the specification in ASTM-E-399 for compact tension specimen for practical design problems. But in elastic-plastic region, the fracture toughness is been predicted by using the crack tip opening displacement model (CTOD-Model) using the specification in ASTM-E-1290 for three-point bend specimen for practical design problem. The critical value for crack tip opening displacement will be calculated after extracting load-displacement data from ANSAYS PROGRAM then using these data in (CTOD-Model) which is separated into two components, elastic and plastic, the elastic component has been estimated using Dug Dual-Model, while the plastic component will be estimated using Plastic Hinge-Model. However, the fracture toughness value that has been predicted by finite element method from non –linear elastic analyses and from non –linear elastic-plastic analyses gives excellent results which are very close to the experimental results with error ratio ranging between (10% to 14%).