Final Project

MEC455/530

MEC455/530
Applied Stress Analysis
Spring - 2014

( Final Project )

Finite Element Analysis of

Fracture Specimen

Gaurav Pundir
(109597135)

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Index
Sl. No.

Description

Pages

1.

Introduction

03

2.

Description of Specimen

04

2.1

Loading and Boundary Conditions

05

3.

Procedure for Modeling in FEM

4.

Results

4.1

Stress Intensity Factor

4.2

Behavior of the opening stress y around

the crack

14

5.

Discussion

15

05 - 11

12-14

1. Introduction
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The purpose of this project is to carry out finite element analysis of a standard
compact tension specimen using ABAQUS. A compact tension specimen is a
notched sample (Shown in Fig.1 below) and is a standard specimen for carry out
fracture analysis as per ASTM standards. The notched sample simulates a crack
and under the applied loads provides the fracture mechanism of a crack. The crack
will begin on the point of the notch and propagate ahead in the sample. Compact
tension specimens are used extensively in the area of fracture mechanics in order to
establish fracture toughness values for a material.

Fig.1 (Compact Tension Specimen)

The Analysis carried out in this report assumes the Linear Elastic Fracture
Mechanics (LEFM), which primarily means that the Material is isotropic linear elastic.
The analysis process of this report includes the modeling of specimen in ABAQUS
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and examine the fracture parameters like stress concentration factor and behavior of
opening stress around crack tip.
2. Description of Specimen
The specimen geometry is considered according to ASTM standards under the plane
strain conditions. During modelling in FEM the origin of coordinate system is
considered at crack tip. The geometry of specimen is as given below in Fig.2:

Fig.2 (Geometry of Compact Tension Specimen)

Where W is width of the specimen and we have considered it to be 50mm or 0.05m,
the thickness of the specimen is considered to be 1m. The length of the crack (a) is
calculated as, a = (0.45 + 5/100) X W = (0.45 + 0.05) X 0.05 = 0.025m.
The values of other dimensions indicated in Fig.2 are given below in Table 1:
Table 1. (Dimensions of the Specimen)
Sl. No.
Value in term of W
1
1.25W
2
0.6 W
3
0.375W
4
0.1W
5
0.188W
6
0.2w

Value in Meters
0.0625m
0.3m
0.01875m
0.005m
0.0095m
0.01m

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2.1 Loading and Boundary Conditions

Due to the symmetry of the compact tension specimen only upper half of the
specimen is modelled in FEM to improve the results by having more number of
nodes as we are restricted to 1000 nodes only. To simulate the boundary conditions
in half model roller are provided in the bottom region ahead of crack, restricting the
motion in Y direction only and last point is fixed in both x and y directions. To
simulate the loading conditions a point load of 100KPa is applied on the top node of
the circular hole. The above details are as shown in Fig.3 below:
P=
100KPa

Crack Tip
(0,0)

Roller

Fixe
d

Fig 3 (Loading and Boundary Conditions)

3. Procedure for Modelling in FEM:

For modelling, the ABAQUS/CAE provides different modules, where each module
defines an aspect of the modelling process; such as, defining the geometry, defining
material properties, and generating a mesh. As you move from module to module,
you build the model from which ABAQUS/CAE generates an input file that you
submit to the ABAQUS for analysis. The procedure with modules of ABAQUS
involved in this report includes following steps:
1. Create a Part
The model is created using 2-dimensional deformable shell settings in the
Part module of ABAQUS. The two-dimensional geometry as indicated in Fig.2 is drawn in the sketch window. After that the geometry is divided into
different sub-regions for creating proper mesh using Partition Tool. The
partition of the model is carried out as shown below in Fig 4:

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Fig.4 (Partition of Part for generating proper Mesh)

2. Assign the Material Properties
In Property module, we define the material properties and apply them to the
domain. The properties of the steel defined in this module are elastic, E =
200GPa, = 0.3. The material created is applied to the section, which is the
part created is previous step.
3. Assemble the model.
The assembly module is used to create an instance of the original part, on
which analysis can be performed.
4. Create the step.
In ABAQUS the analysis is carried out is steps, for which step module is used.
For analysis of this report two steps are required. The initial step is by default
defined, which takes care of the boundary conditions that constrained the
specimen. An additional step step-1 is created for the process of applying
the load on the domain.
5. Defining boundary conditions and loading.
The load module is used to apply load and boundary conditions on the
domain. The bottom edge ahead of the crack is provided with roller by
restricting motion in Y-directions, which is defined as U2 in ABAQUS. To
prevent the translation of domain, the right most node on the bottom edge of
the domain is provided with boundary condition of restricting motion in both x
and y direction. A point load of 100KPa is applied on the top node of the
circular hole.
6. Create the mesh.
In the mesh controls, plane strain with non-reduced integration condition is
specified for the analysis, which is called CPE4 elements. The mesh for the
domain is created using the structured quad elements in general and sweep
mesh elements near the crack tip region. The mesh created has total 917
elements and 990 nodes. The mesh for the domain created is given in Fig.5
and enlarged view of mesh around crack tip is shown in Fig.6

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Fig.5 (Mesh of the Complete Domain)

Fig.6(Enlarged view of mesh near crack tip region)

7. Create the analysis job.
The job module is used to create the job for analysis, which is submitted to
ABAQUS for analysis.
8. Visualization
The visualization module is used for viewing the stresses in the domain and
the result of applied load with given boundary condition. Fig. 7 given in next
page shows the boundary conditions and load position on the nodes. Next,
the stress contours are plotted on the deformed models. We have plotted von
mises stress and y on the whole model as shown in Fig. 9 & Fig. 10. Also due
to large concentration and gradient of stress around the crack tip, these
stresses are also shown in enlarged view of the crack tip, refer Fig.11 &
Fig.12.

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Fig. 7 (Mesh plot of the deformed shape indicating boundary conditions and loading point)

Fig. 8 (Mesh plot of the deformed shape near the crack tip)

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Fig. 9 (Contour plots of Von mises stress over the domain)

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Fig. 10 (Contour plots near crack tip)

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Fig. 11 (Contour plots of von mises stress near crack tip)

Fig. 12 (Contour plots of y near crack tip)

4.0 Results:4.1 Stress Intensity Factor.

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A. The stress intensity factor KI is a proportionality constant relating stress field

to r. Every material has some critical value for stress intensity factor K I and by
determining KI for a given geometry under given boundary conditions it can be
predicted whether the crack will propagate or not. There are three different
modes of fracture leading to different stress intensity factor. Our specimen fall
under mode-I or opening mode, in which the body is loaded by tensile forces,
such that the crack surfaces are pulled apart in the y direction. For Mode- I,
K1 value is calculated using handbook formula given below:

a
w 0.866 4.64 a 13.22 a
3
w
w
a 2
1
w

P
KI
w

a
a
14.72 5.66
w
w
3

Putting,
P = 100Kpa, w = 0.05m, a = 0.025m, a/w = 0.5
In above equation we get, KI = 4.336137 X 106.
The actual KI calculated above is used as reference to find out the accuracy of
the results provided by the FEM. For this purpose the value of K I is calculated
using K-field solution given below:

KI

E
2 fe
uy
4(1 2 ) l

Where,
E = 200Gpa,
u

= 0.3

fe
y

is displacement of node just behind the crack in y direction and here it is

equal to 3.7935X10-7m
l

is length of element behind crack tip and here it is equal to 1.6206 X 10-4m.

Putting the above values on above equation we get, K I = 4.1027 X 106.

Comparing the both values, we get an error of 5.38%. This error is reasonable
to rely on FEM results and indicate that our mesh design yield results that are
only a few percent point variance with the actual value.
B. To determine the stress field ahead of crack, six different nodes within
r<a/10(~2.5mm) and 0<</4 are selected and X & Y coordinates of these
nodes are recorded along with y. X-Y coordinates are then converted into r &
and stress intensity factor at each node is calculated using following
formula:
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stress
I

MEC455/530

cos
2

yfe 2r

3
1 sin sin

2
2

K Istress

at every nodes is calculated and the difference between this and exact K I at
each node is also calculated for finding error in percentage point, as shown in table
below:
Table -2 (Stress intensity factor)
Coordinates

X(m)
Y(m)
(Degrees)
3.58E-04 4.73E-05 7.53

r (m)

Y (Pa)

K Istress

3.61E-04

5.94E-04 1.60E-04 15.04

6.15E-04

8.64E-04 3.58E-04 22.53

9.35E-04

1.16E-03 6.69E-04 30.03

1.34E-03

1.47E-03 1.12E-03 37.45

1.85E-03

1.75E-03 1.76E-03 45.02

2.48E-03

8.58E+0
7
6.64E+0
7
5.64E+0
7
4.78E+0
7
4.29E+0
7
3.68E+0
7

4.04E+0
6
3.97E+0
6
3.98E+0
6
3.84E+0
6
3.85E+0
6
3.67E+0
6

K Istress

The
Fig.13:

Difference
from KI
2.94E+05

Error
(%)
6.8

3.71E+05

8.5

3.58E+05

8.3

5.00E+05

11.5

4.85E+05

11.2

6.67E+05

15.4

values indicated in above table are plotted against r as shown below in

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4,100,000.00
4,000,000.00
3,900,000.00
3,800,000.00
3,700,000.00
3,600,000.00
3,500,000.00
0

r (m)

Fig. 13 (Graph between KI stress and r)

4.2 Behavior of the opening stress y around the crack
To further establish the accuracy of the results obtained through FEM, the angular
variation of the computed stress is compared with the angular variation of actual Kfield stress. For this analysis 14 nodes around the crack tip (0 < < ) are selected
and for each node coordinates and y is recorded. First, the stress is normalized for
each node using actual KI with following formula:
fe

2r
y
~
KI
fe
y

(1)

Now, the angular variation of stress according to the K-field solution is calculated as
below:

3
~y ( ) cos 1 sin sin

2
2
2

(2)

Using above formulas of equation 1 & 2, normalized stress value is calculated for all
selected nodes and both the normalized stress values are plot against angle , as
shown in Fig.14.

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12
10
8
6
(2)
4

(1)

2
0
0

30

60

90

120

150

180

(Degress)

Fig. 14 (Graph of normalised stress values as a function of angle )

From the above, graph it can easily been observed that the both values are very
close to each other over various values of angle and can reaffirms that the results
obtained by our mesh here are reasonable to consider for the fracture analysis of
given specimen.

5. Discussions
The process of analyzing standard fracture specimen using FEM, as is the case in
this project is quite useful in saving time and resources given the accuracy of results
obtained here. In every value obtained from FEM the error from actual value is within
a few percentage point, which presents a strong case for carrying out such FEM
analysis in the field of fracture mechanics especially when we want to get the results
within short period of time and are lacking in resources for carrying out actual tests.

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