Abstract :
Recalcitrant grain boundaries offer an important resistance to cleavage crack advance
through crack trapping. In this article, this effect is studied based on an energy analysis. It is
found that the critical energy release rate is dominated by a single parameter, Q, that
collects together factors such as work of separation, grain size, and crack length. For short
cracks, the crack trapping effect leads to an increase in fracture resistance by 20–30%. For
long cracks, the crack trapping effect is negligible.
C 2005 Springer Science + Business Media, Inc.
