Modeling Intergranular Fracture at Elevated Temperature

This project presumes modeling intergranular fracture at elevated temperature. The
main task is to replicate the journal article by Rishi Raj and M. F. Ashby [1]. The
model will be simulated for other materials and applications which relate to
intergranular fracture at elevated temperature. By having this model, the time to
rupture of material at elevated temperature can be estimated.
There are several types of creep deformation leading to material failure. This project
focused only on a type of creep failure which is due to nucleation, growth and
coalescence of voids. The work involves two main phases which are replicating the
nucleation and growth of voids in single phase materials such as copper and then,
expanding the work to more complicated material systems. The model of fixed
number of nuclei is done using default data of copper and replicated with other
materials containing iron and metal carbides. The model and the results using other
metals are shown in the results and discussions section.
Some problems were encountered during modeling of rupture time for continuous
nucleation. The results were not as expected when compared to the results presented
in the Raj and Ashby’s paper. The main reason is that some of the data used in the
paper were not provided. The model for rupture time for fixed number of nuclei and
the baseline for the model for continuous nucleation have been successfully created