A unified fracture model for cleavage and ductile fracture
Guijia Li, Zinan Li, Junhe Lian
Abstract. With increased plastic deformation strength, the body-centers cubic materials tend to switch from ductile fracture model to cleavage fracture, despite the increase caused by either intrinsic microstructure or alloy manipulation or extrinsic loading conditions, e.g., lowering temperatures. Due to the significant difference in failure mechanisms, current modeling approaches, either the fracture mechanics or damage mechanics-based models, treat them with separate and decoupled strategies. However, many recent developments in high-strength engineering materials or applications under extreme conditions encounter more often the meeting and interaction of these two fracture modes. This study, therefore, aims to propose a unified fracture model that is capable of predicting both ductile and cleavage fracture under a consistent mechanics framework and autonomously switching the models depending on the loading conditions. The model is calibrated and validated by high-strength bcc steels with tensile strength 1000 MPa and under quasi-static deformation at room temperature. The failure mechanisms are analyzed and confirmed by fractography and the microstructure features controlling the two fracture models are investigated by multiscale microstructure characterization. The developed model as well as the microstructure-property correlation eventually provides inspiration for formulating a meso-scale mechanism-based model to bridge with the mechanics-based model and also shed light on material design with tailored fracture resistance.
Keywords
Ductile Fracture, Cleavage Fracture, Fracture Modeling, Ductile-To-Brittle Transition
Published online 5/7/2025, 7 pages
Copyright © 2025 by the author(s)
Published under license by Materials Research Forum LLC., Millersville PA, USA
Citation: Guijia Li, Zinan Li, Junhe Lian, A unified fracture model for cleavage and ductile fracture, Materials Research Proceedings, Vol. 54, pp 1054-1060, 2025
DOI: https://doi.org/10.21741/9781644903599-114
The article was published as article 114 of the book Material Forming
Content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license. Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI.
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