What is Fracture Mechanics Describe its importance in engine

What is Fracture Mechanics? Describe its importance in engineering design.

Solution

Fracture mechanics is the field of mechanics concerned with the study of the propagation of cracks in materials. It uses methods of analytical solid mechanics to calculate the driving force on a crack and those of experimental solid mechanics to characterize the material\'s resistance to fracture.

In modern materials science, fracture mechanics is an important tool in improving the mechanical performance of mechanical components. It applies the physics of stress and strain, in particular the theories of elasticity and plasticity, to the microscopic crystallographic defects found in real materials in order to predict the macroscopic mechanical failure of bodies. Fractography is widely used with fracture mechanics to understand the causes of failures and also verify the theoretical failure predictions with real life failures. The prediction of crack growth is at the heart of the damage tolerance discipline.