Natural structural materials are built at ambient temperature from a fairly limited selection of components. They usually comprise hard and soft phases arranged in complex hierarchical architectures, with characteristic dimensions spanning from the nanoscale to the macroscale. The resulting materials are lightweight and often display unique combinations of strength and toughness, but have proven difficult to mimic synthetically. Here, we review the common design motifs of a range of natural structural materials, and discuss the difficulties associated with the design and fabrication of synthetic structures that mimic the structural and mechanical characteristics of their natural counterparts.

Bioinspired structural materials

This paper deals with the general problem of crack extension in a combined stress field where a crack can grow in any arbitrary direction with reference to its original position. In a situation, when both of the stress-intensity factors,k
1,k
2 are present along the crack front, the crack may spread in any direction in a plane normal to the crack edge depending on the loading conditions. Preliminary results indicate that the direction of crack growth and fracture toughness for the mixed problem of Mode I and Mode II are governed by the critical value of the strain-energy-density factor,S
cr. The basic assumption is that crack initiation occurs when the interior minimum ofS reaches a critical value designatedS
cr. The strain-energy-density factorS represents the strength of the elastic energy field in the vicinity of the crack tip which is singular of the order of 1/r where the radial distancer is measured from the crack front. In the special case of Mode I crack extensionS
cr is related tok
1c alone asS
cr = (κ − 1)k

 1
 2
 /8μ. In general,S takes the quadratic forma
1 1
k
1 + 2a
1 2
k
1
k
2 +a
2 2
k
2 whose critical value is assumed to be a material constant. The analytical predictions are in good agreement with experimental data on the problem of an inclined crack in plexiglass and aluminum alloy specimens. The result of this investigation provides a convenient procedure for determining the critical crack size that a structure will tolerate under mixed mode conditions for a given applied stress.

Strain-energy-density factor applied to mixed mode crack problems

A solution is presented for the elastic stress intensity factors at the tip of a slightly curved or kinked two-dimensional crack. The solution is accurate to first order in the deviation of the crack surface from a straight line and is carried out by perturbation procedures analogous to those of Banichuk [1] and Goldstein and Salganik [2, 3]. Comparison with exact solutions for circular arc cracks and straight cracks with kinks indicates that the first order solution is numerically accurate for considerable deviations from straightness. The solution is applied to fromulate an equation for the path of crack growth, on the assumption that the path is characterized by pure Mode I conditions (i.e., K
II=0) at the advancing tip. This method confirms the dependence of the stability, under Mode I loading, of a straight crack path on the sign of the non-singular stress term, representing tensile stress T acting parallel to the crack, in the Irwin-Williams expansion of the crack tip field. The straight path is shown to be stable under Mode I loading for T 0.

Slightly curved or kinked cracks

Fracture mechanics studies the development and spreading of cracks in materials. The study uses two techniques including analytical and experimental solid mechanics. The former is used to determine the driving force on a crack and the latter is used to measure material's resistance to fracture. The text begins with a detailed discussion of fundamental concepts including linear elastic fracture mechanics (LEFM), yielding fracture mechanics, mixed mode fracture and computational aspects of linear elastic fracture mechanics. It explains important topics including Griffith theory of brittle crack propagation and its Irwin and Orowan modification, calculation of theoretical cohesive strength of materials through an atomic model and analytical determination of crack tip stress field. This book covers MATLAB programs for calculating fatigue life under variable amplitude cyclic loading. The experimental measurements of fracture toughness parameters KIC, JIC and crack opening displacement (COD) are provided in the last chapter.

Fracture Mechanics: Fundamentals and Applications

The purpose of this paper is to revisit the maximum tensile stress (MTS) criterion to predict brittle fracture for mixed mode conditions. Earlier experimental results for brittle fracture of polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) using angled cracked plates are also re-examined. The role of the T-stress in brittle fracture for linear elastic materials is emphasized. The generalized MTS criterion is described in terms of mode I and II stress intensity factors, K I and K II and the T-stress (the stress parallel to the crack), and a fracture process zone, r c . The generalized MTS criterion is then compared with the earlier experimental results for PMMA subjected to mixed mode conditions. It is shown that brittle fracture can be controlled by a combination of singular stresses (characterized by K) or non-singular stress (T-stress). The T-stress is also shown to have an influence on brittle fracture when the singular stress field is a result of mode II loading.

The role of T-stress in brittle fracture for linear elastic materials under mixed-mode loading

Experiments are described in which thin plates of polymethylmethacrylate were fractured with cracks set at various angles to an applied uniaxial stress. While there is substantial agreement with previous analytical predictions, it is shown that inclusion of the stress component parallel to the crack can improve the correlation between linear theory and experiment, using a critical stress at a critical distance interpretation of the stress intensity factor criterion.

Fracture under complex stress — The angled crack problem

Panels of PMMA having edge cracks at an angle to applied load were tested in tension and bending. Direction of initial crack growth and load to failure were recorded. Stress analysis of each test configuration was performed, and the maximum hoop stress and minimum strain energy density criteria were used to predict failure data. Reasonable correlation between experiment and theory was realised, but with little basis for discriminating between the two failure criteria.

Further results on the angled crack problem

Experiments are reported on spherical PMMA domes with thickness variations. The results were correlated with the parameter a2/Rt where I is a mean thickness based on equivalent energy. The curvature effect could be adequately represented by a published formulae. Crack angles and failure stresses for tubes broken in torsion were compared with the maximum hoop stress and minimum strain energy theories of Sih.

The fracture of spherical shells under pressure and circular tubes with angled cracks in torsion

Further observations on the angled crack problem

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Fracture under complex stress — The angled crack problem

Further results on the angled crack problem

The fracture of spherical shells under pressure and circular tubes with angled cracks in torsion

Further observations on the angled crack problem