This US-Argentina Cooperative Science award supports the collaboration of Hugo Ernst of the Georgia Institute of Technology and Eduardo Asta of the National Technological University in Argentina. The project aims to better understand the phenomenon of crack growth in the presence of extensive plasticity, using nonlinear fracture mechanics methods. The researchers seek to improve methods of fracture toughness tests, study proposed parameters for toughness characterization and their limitations, assess effects of specimen size and constraint, describe fracture past the fracture mechanics regime, and determine relations between microstructural characteristics and mechanical properties. The project will be comprised of testing, analysis of experimental data, and analytical studies. Two Argentine groups besides Asta's will participate: one led by Dario Jinchuk of the Institute for Nondestructive Evaluation, the other by Juan Perez Ipina of the University of Comahue. The Argentine side will benefit from exchange with US researchers working at the frontier of fracture mechanics methodology. The US side will gain knowledge about the application of fracture mechanics methods and access to large experimental data banks that are increasingly expensive to obtain in the US. Both sides will accrue expertise in structural reliability under severe loadings, causing crack growth under elastic plastic conditions.
