Abstract
Abstract
A method of determining the fracture toughness of ductile material in the form of a reinforced double cantilever beam (RDCB) specimen is presented. The analysis makes use of the Dugdale strip yield model incorporated in the beam-on-elastic foundation model to represent the fractures of a DC3 specimen. Two different foundation models are considered. The first model assumes that one half of the RDCB acts as the elastic foundation for the other half and the second model assumes that the groove acts as the elastic foundation. The results of the groove foundation model are found to be closer to the experimental values based on the crack growth resistance curves than those of the beam foundation model. The results are further verified using a J control integral determination based on a two dimensional elastic-plastic finite element analysis.
The material used is 2024-T3, which is moderately ductile, and the proposed method yields fracture toughness values with a reasonable degree of accuracy.
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