Small specimen techniques for estimation of tensile, fatigue, fracture and crack propagation material model parameters

Kazakeviciute, Julija; Rouse, James Paul; Focatiis, Davide; Hyde, Christopher

Abstract

Small specimen mechanical testing is an exciting and rapidly developing field in which fundamental deformation behaviours can be observed from experiments performed on comparatively small amounts of material. These methods are particularly useful when there is limited source material to facilitate a sufficient number of standard specimen tests, if any at all. Such situations include the development of new materials or when performing routine maintenance/inspection studies of in-service components, requiring that material conditions are updated with service exposure. The potentially more challenging loading conditions and complex stress states experienced by small specimens, in comparison with standard specimen geometries, has led to a tendency for these methods to be used in ranking studies rather than for fundamental material parameter determination. Classifying a specimen as ‘small’ can be subjective, and in the present work the focus is to review testing methods that utilise specimens with characteristic dimensions of less than 50 mm. By doing this, observations made here will be relevant to industrial service monitoring problems, wherein small samples of material are extracted and tested from operational components in such a way that structural integrity is not compromised. Whilst recently the majority of small specimen test techniques development have focused on the determination of creep behaviour/properties as well as sub-size tensile testing, attention is given here to small specimen testing methods for determining specific tensile, fatigue, fracture and crack growth properties. These areas are currently underrepresented in published reviews. The suitability of specimens and methods is discussed here, along with associated advantages and disadvantages.

Citation

Kazakeviciute, J., Rouse, J. P., Focatiis, D., & Hyde, C. (2022). Small specimen techniques for estimation of tensile, fatigue, fracture and crack propagation material model parameters. Journal of Strain Analysis for Engineering Design, 57(4), 227-254. https://doi.org/10.1177/03093247211025208

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: May 11, 2021
• Online Publication Date: Jun 15, 2021
• Publication Date: May 1, 2022
• Deposit Date: Jul 20, 2021
• Publicly Available Date: Apr 4, 2022
• Journal: Journal of Strain Analysis for Engineering Design
• Print ISSN: 0309-3247
• Electronic ISSN: 2041-3130
• Publisher: SAGE Publications
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 57
• Issue: 4
• Pages: 227-254
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/03093247211025208
• Keywords: Mechanical Engineering; Modelling and Simulation; Mechanics of Materials; Applied Mathematics
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/5693387
• Publisher URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/03093247211025208