DUCTILE FAILURE OF A CONSTRAINED METAL FOIL

A METAL foil bonded between stiff ceramic blocks may fail in a variety of ways, including de-adhesion of interfaces, cracking in the ceramics and ductile rupture of the metal. If the interface bond is strong enough to allow the foil to undergo substantial plastic deformation dimples are usually present on fracture surfaces and the nominal fracture energy is enhanced. Ductile fracture mechanisms responsible for such morphology include (i) growth of near-tip voids nucleated at second-phase particles and or interface pores, (ii) cavitation and (iii) interfacial debonding at the site of maximum stress which develops at distances of several foil thicknesses ahead of the crack tip. For a crack in a low to moderately hardening bulk metal, it is known that the maximum mean stress which develops at a distance of several crack openings ahead of the tip does not exceed about three times the yield stress. In contrast, the maximum mean stress that develops at several foil thicknesses ahead of the crack tip in a constrained metal foil can increase continuously with the applied load. Mean stress and interfacial traction of about four to six times the yield of the metal foil can trigger cavitation and/or interfacial debonding. The mechanical fields which bear on the competition between failure mechanisms are obtained by a large deformation finite element analysis. Effort is made to formulate predictive criteria indicating, for a given material system, which one of the several mechanisms operates and the relevant parameters that govern the nominal fracture work. The shielding of the crack tip in the context of ductile adhesive joints, due to the non-proportional deformation in a region of the order of the foil thickness, is also discussed.