Peridynamic analysis of thermomechanical effects in fracture toughening mechanisms of stop holes

Official URL: https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.engfracmech.2024.110054

In this study, a bond-based fully coupled thermomechanical peridynamic framework is implemented to study the fracture toughening of stop-holes in brittle materials subjected to thermomechanical loads. The developed modelling approach aims to provide comprehensive guidance about thermal effects on the fracture toughening mechanism of inclusions under realistic engineering conditions. First, the model is verified using simulation of several benchmark case studies and predicts the mechanical, thermal and damage parameters with high accuracy. Then, a fully coupled thermomechanical analysis of a 2D structure is performed to study the effect of the location of a single stop-hole on fracture toughening. A thorough investigation of the arresting and accelerating effect of the stop-hole is conducted. Additionally, the accuracy of various degrees of thermomechanical coupling including one-way weak coupling and no coupling is compared with full coupling. The study of crack propagation dynamics reveals that ignoring thermal effects underpredicts the toughness enhancement of stop-holes. Furthermore, although the weak thermomechanical coupling offers a reasonable prediction of crack propagation dynamics in most cases of our study, it is not accurate in certain cases. In the final section, some benchmark cases of complex arrangements of multiple stop-holes in literature are revisited. Our results indicate a different toughness trend for some cases when considering the full thermomechanical coupling. This suggests the proposed framework provides a more accurate tool for designing toughened structures using inclusions.