Transformation toughening in ceramic with martensites of micro-cracks (Q1204091)

We present a method of calculating the decrease of stress intensity factor without considering the microstructural details or performing an incremental analysis. Regardless of the history of loading and unloading, the current crack opening displacement is all the information needed for the calculation. It is proven that under a given distribution of crack opening displacement, there are infinite numbers of possible configurations of transformation zone with transformation strain inside. Identifying the actual transformation strain and transformation zone is impossible unless additional information is provided. The problem is formulated as a system of integral equations of the first kind with transformation strain as unknown and crack opening displacement as input data. The regularization method is employed to obtain a stable solution of these ill-posed integral equations. The stress intensity factor is then computed by using Bueckner's weight function.