Fracture Toughness Evaluation of AA3003 Aluminum Alloy through Alternative Experimental Methods and Finite Element Technique

Abstract

The fracture parameter most commonly used to analyze the integrity of engineering components is plane strain fracture toughness. The fracture toughness testing involved conventionally involves material cost and costly machine. However, alternative methods are used for in-situ applications which give reasonably good results. There is interest among researchers to use alternative methods for evaluating fracture toughness and to assess the material failure. This work aims at determining fracture toughness by ball indentation test and three point bend test and simulating those using ANSYS. The flow property of the selected material is also determined from the stress strain data by using ASTM E646-78. Excellent agreement was obtained from the experiments and empirical relations used for determination of fracture toughness by both methods

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.mech.24.5.21173