Modeling of inter- and transgranular stress corrosion crack propagation in polycrystalline material by using phase field method

• Main Authors: Nguyen Thanh-Tung, Réthoré Julien, Baietto Marie-Christine, Bolivar José, Fregonese Marion, Bordas Stéphane P.A.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: De Gruyter 2017-12-01
• Series: Journal of the Mechanical Behavior of Materials
• Subjects: anodic dissolution; cohesive zone model; crack propagation; phase field; polycrystals; stress corrosion cracking
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1515/jmbm-2017-0024

A coupled multiphysics phase field framework is proposed to model anodic dissolution induced by stress corrosion fracture growth at microstructual level. The effects of electrochemical-mechanical processes (including crystal anisotropy) are all taken into account. This new model is based upon: (i) an anisotropic phase transformation model based on a variational formulation to describe material dissolution along preferential directions; (ii) an efficient description of grain boundaries as a smeared cohesive zone; (iii) an explicit approximation to model the different electrochemical behaviors between grain boundary and grain interior. Both intergranular and transgranular stress corrosion cracking is simulated in an efficient manner. The abilities of the proposed model are illustrated through several numerical examples involving a full prediction of complex crack network growth induced by stress corrosion cracking within 2D polycrystaline models.