Micro-Mechanisms and Modeling of Ductile Fracture Initiation in Structural Steel after Exposure to Elevated Temperatures

• Main Authors: Yazhi Zhu, Shiping Huang, Hizb Ullah Sajid
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2021-05-01
• Series: Metals
• Subjects: post-fire behavior; ductile fracture; stress triaxiality; elevated temperature; cooling method
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/2075-4701/11/5/767

This paper aims to (1) study ductile fracture behavior, and (2) provide a computational tool for predicting fracture initiation in ASTM A572 Gr. 50 structural steels under axisymmetric tension loading are heated to elevated temperatures and cooled down in air and in water. Employing the post-fire test results reported in the literature for A572 Gr. 50 steels, this paper carries out coupon-level finite element (FE) simulations to capture the stress and strain fields and explore the micro-mechanism of post-fire fracture in ASTM A572 Gr. 50 steels, respectively. Numerical results show that the effects of the experienced temperature and cooling method on fracture parameters are more significant for the steels cooled after being heated to temperatures from 800 °C to 1000 °C than those from 500 °C to 700 °C, due to microstructural changes during the cooling process. Air-cooled and water-cooled specimens show an improvement and a significant reduction in ductility, respectively. A modified void growth model (VGM) is proposed by introducing two additional temperature-dependent functions, through which the effects of elevated temperature and cooling method on fracture behavior are quantitatively analyzed. Limitations of this study are also discussed.