The effect of subcritical ductile crack growth on cleavage fracture probability in the transition regime using continuum damage mechanics simulation

• Ductile crack growth is predicted with no need to calibrate model parameters as for similar works.
• A curve for the maximum ductile crack growth prior to cleavage is determined and validated.
• The effect of ductile crack growth (DCG) prior to cleavage on the Weibull stress was determined.
• The effect of DCG on Q constraint was shown and quantified for selected specimen geometries.
• The importance of DCG on cleavage fracture probability was shown analyzing near tip stress.

There are compelling experimental evidences that demonstrate a significant effect of specimen size, a/W ratio and ductile tearing on cleavage fracture toughness values (KJc) measured in the ductile-to-brittle transition region of materials such as ferritic steels. In this work, the influence of ductile tearing and constraint loss on Weibull stress and failure probability in ductile to brittle transition (DBT) region is investigated. The study was carried out using a modeling approach that combines the modified Beremin model (MBM) for cleavage fracture and the Bonora damage model (BDM) for ductile tearing. Here, CT and SEB, with deep and shallow crack, specimen geometries, which are characterized by different crack tip constraint, have been analyzed. Results show that the occurrence of ductile crack growth in the mid-to-upper transition region affects the nature of the stress field in the region surrounding the crack tip in terms of maximum principal stress peak, its spatial gradient – which has a direct consequence on the calculated Weibull stress – and stress triaxiality, which affects the constraint loss. This combination of effects leads to much lower fracture toughness values that those predicted by not considering ductile crack growth.