ABSTRACT
Ductile failure in heterogeneous microstructures typically initiates with particle cracking or interfacial debonding [223, 239]. Voids grow near nucleated regions, e.g., at crack tips, with deformation, and subsequently coalesce with neighboring voids to result in localized matrix failure. Evolution of matrix failure causes stress and strain redistribution in the microstructure that leads to ductile fracture at other sites. Eventually, the phenomena leads to catastrophic failure of the microstructure. Crack initiation and propagation mechanisms are sensitive to micromechanical state variables, especially stress triaxiality and plastic deformation. Experimental studies on ductile failure, e.g., in [325, 441, 18, 70], have shown strong connections between morphological variations and microstructural damage nucleation. Modeling ductile failure properties like strain-to-failure and ductility requires incorporation of microstructural morphology for accurate prediction.
