Publications

Ductile failure X-prize

Boyce, Brad B.; Foulk, James W.; Littlewood, David J.; Mota, Alejandro M.; Ostien, Jakob O.; Silling, Stewart A.; Spencer, Benjamin S.; Wellman, Gerald W.; Bishop, Joseph E.; Brown, Arthur B.; Córdova, Theresa E.; Cox, James C.; Crenshaw, Thomas B.; Dion, Kristin D.; Emery, John M.

Fracture or tearing of ductile metals is a pervasive engineering concern, yet accurate prediction of the critical conditions of fracture remains elusive. Sandia National Laboratories has been developing and implementing several new modeling methodologies to address problems in fracture, including both new physical models and new numerical schemes. The present study provides a double-blind quantitative assessment of several computational capabilities including tearing parameters embedded in a conventional finite element code, localization elements, extended finite elements (XFEM), and peridynamics. For this assessment, each of four teams reported blind predictions for three challenge problems spanning crack initiation and crack propagation. After predictions had been reported, the predictions were compared to experimentally observed behavior. The metal alloys for these three problems were aluminum alloy 2024-T3 and precipitation hardened stainless steel PH13-8Mo H950. The predictive accuracies of the various methods are demonstrated, and the potential sources of error are discussed.