Fracture Mechanics Computations

Lecturer:  Dr.-Ing. Omar El Khatib

Responsible for module: Prof. Dipl.-Ing. Björn Kiefer, Ph.D.

Competencies: 

Development of an understanding of the fracture of materials and structures from the point of view of a design engineer; students acquire knowledge about theoretical (numerical) stress analysis of cracked structures as well as fracture mechanics concepts of brittle, ductile and fatigue failure. Development of the ability to design fail-safe structures with defects, qualitatively assess the safety and durability as well as estimate the duration of life for subcritical crack growth under (random) in-service loads.

Contents: fundamentals of fracture mechanics, including fracture mechanics concepts and relevant load parameters for elastic and plastic materials under static as well as cyclic loading. Suitable Finite-Element techniques for the calculation of load parameters are introduced. The application of fracture mechanics concepts to the assessment of safety and durability of structures is demonstrated with the help of real-world examples.