Development of coupled thermoelastic discrete model for thermal shock cracking in brittle materials: Parametric analysis of crack patterns and material properties

Abstract

A coupled thermo-elastic discrete model is developed to describe the thermal shock behaviour of a brittle material. This model is based on coupling thermal analysis with the recently developed constitutively informed particle dynamics (CPD) approach. The thermomechanical CPD model is able to describe the initiation and propagation of cracks in quenched ceramic specimens. The model is shown to faithfully reproduce the crack patterns in good accord with experimental results from literature. The resulting crack patterns show a periodical and hierarchical characteristics which is a characteristic feature of the thermal shock cracks in brittle materials. The present study focuses on the analysis of the thermal crack, considering the role of relevant thermal and elastic material parameters such as the quench temperature, thermal conductivity, specific heat capacity, density, thermal expansion co-efficient, Young’s Modulus and critical failure energy. A non-dimensional analysis is performed to understand the dependence of crack pattern on these material parameters.