http://blogs.springer.com/frac The official blog of the journal. Moderated by Editor-in-Chief Ravi Chandar Fri, 06 Nov 2009 07:22:46 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en by Huang, G. L.; Sun, C. T. Cosserat type continuum theories have been employed by many authors to study cracks in elastic solids with microstructures. Depending on which theory was used, different crack tip stress singularities have been obtained. In this paper, a microstructure continuum theory is used to model ... http://blogs.springer.com/frac/articles/multiscale-continuum-modeling-of-a-crack-in-elastic-media-with-microstructures/ by Yan, J.-H.; Sutton, M. A.; Deng, X.; Wei, Z.; Zavattieri, Pablo Ductile thin-sheet structures, such as fuselage skin or automobile panels, are widely used in engineering applications. These structures often-times are subjected to mixed mode (I/II/III) loading, with stable crack growth observed prior to final fracture. To characterize specific ... http://blogs.springer.com/frac/articles/mixed-mode-crack-growth-in-ductile-thin-sheet-materials-under-combined-in-plane-and-out-of-plane-loading/ by Cramer, Marcus; Sevostianov, Igor The paper focuses on experimental study of the effect of pore distribution on the mechanical properties of aluminum sheets containing multiple holes. Mechanical behavior of materials of uniform microstructure is compared with that of materials containing pore clusters of circular and elliptical shapes. The overall ... http://blogs.springer.com/frac/articles/effect-of-pore-distribution-on-elastic-stiffness-and-fracture-toughness-of-porous-materials/ by Stec, Mateusz; Faleskog, Jonas In ferritic steels a propagating cleavage microcrack changes its propagation direction as it advances from grain to grain. This is due to differences in the orientation of the cleavage planes of two neighboring grains. In order to reach a cleavage plane in a new grain, ... http://blogs.springer.com/frac/articles/micromechanical-modeling-of-grain-boundary-resistance-to-cleavage-crack-propagation-in-ferritic-steels/ by Astafurova, E. G.; Chumlyakov, Yu. I.; Maier, H. J. The ductile-to-brittle transition (DBT) in Fe-13Mn-1.3C (Hadfield steel, I) and Fe-13Mn-2.7 Al-1.3C (Hadfield steel, II) (wt.%) single crystals oriented along $${[011], [{\bar{{1}}}44]}$$, and [$${\bar{{1}}11}$$] directions was investigated under tension in the temperature interval of 77 to 673 K. The DBT ... http://blogs.springer.com/frac/articles/the-effect-of-aluminum-alloying-on-ductile-to-brittle-transition-in-hadfield-steel-single-crystal/ by Armero, Francisco; Linder, Christian This paper presents the extension of some finite elements with embedded strong discontinuities to the fully transient range with the focus on dynamic fracture. Cracks and shear bands are modeled in this setting as discontinuities of the displacement field, the so-called strong discontinuities, propagating through ... http://blogs.springer.com/frac/articles/numerical-simulation-of-dynamic-fracture-using-finite-elements-with-embedded-discontinuities/ by Häusler, C.; Jelitto, H.; Neumeister, P.; Balke, H.; Schneider, G. A. The fracture behaviour of metal-piezoceramic interfaces under mechanical and electrical loading is examined by four point bending using commercial multilayer actuators. The experiments are performed under stable crack growth in a custom made very stiff testing machine. Besides ... http://blogs.springer.com/frac/articles/interfacial-fracture-of-piezoelectric-multilayer-actuators-under-mechanical-and-electrical-loading/ by Zhang, X. B.; Li, J.; Boukha, S. E. In order to better understand the failure behaviour of brittle or quasi-brittle materials, we developed a numerical model to analyse the creation of a main macro-crack from a large number of micro-cracks. The boundary element method is used to simulate numerically ... http://blogs.springer.com/frac/articles/modelling-the-failure-behaviour-of-brittle-or-quasi-brittle-materials-by-analysing-the-growth-of-micro-cracks/ by Guimard, Jean-Mathieu; Allix, Olivier; Pechnik, Nicolas; Thévenet, Pascal This paper addresses the question of rate effects in the propagation of delamination cracks in Composite Fiber-Reinforced Plastics (CFRPs). In order to make use of a simple loading device, a mode-II case is used as the basis of the experimental study. ... http://blogs.springer.com/frac/articles/characterization-and-modeling-of-rate-effects-in-the-dynamic-propagation-of-mode-ii-delamination-in-composite-laminates/ by Ervin, John; Sevostianov, Igor The paper provides statistical analysis on the effect of mutual positions of individual contacts on the overall resistance and incremental elastic stiffness of a cluster of contacts. We consider an example of a cluster with 76 contact spots of the same radii. The regular lattice ... http://blogs.springer.com/frac/articles/effect-of-mutual-positions-of-individual-contacts-on-the-overall-resistance-and-elastic-stiffness-of-a-cluster-of-contacts/