Crack tip displacements of microstructurally small surface cracks in single phase ductile polycrystals

A planar double slip crystal plasticity model is applied to the evaluation of crack tip opening (CTOD) and sliding (CTSD) displacements for microstructurally small stationary cracks under monotonic loading for a material with nominal stress–strain behavior that is representative of a relatively high strength helicopter rotor hub material. Two-dimensional plane strain finite element calculations are presented for CTSD and CTOD of microstructurally small transgranular surface cracks in a polycrystal subjected to monotonic loading. The effects of crack length relative to grain size, orientation distribution of nearest neighbor grains, stress state and stress level are considered for nominal stress levels below the macroscopic yield strength. The CTOD and CTSD are computed for stationary crystallographic surface cracks with various realizations of crystallographic orientations of surrounding grains. It is found that (i) the opening displacement is dominant for remote tension even for crystallographic cracks oriented along the maximum shear plane in the first surface grain, (ii) there is a strong dependence of the CTOD on the proximity to grain boundaries, but lesser dependence of the CTSD, and (iii) that the elastic solutions for CTOD and CTSD are valid below about 30% of the 0.2% offset-defined yield strength.