Fracture Mechanics & Crack Propagation:

Fracture Mechanics is devoted to understanding and predicting material cracking and fracture failure. Cracking may initiate under sustained loading (i.e. static cracking), or in cyclic loading over long periods of time (i.e. fatigue cracking).

In fatigue situations the Fatigue Crack Growth Threshold (cyclic load at which cracking begins), and the Fatigue Crack Growth Rate (crack growth rate under cyclic loads) are of especial interest. In addition, factors such as material corrosion and unknown material impurities can often contribute to crack propagation.

Exova Singapore offers many services with strong experience in testing fracture toughness (the resistance of a material to cracking) and in suggesting design parameters which may be used to optimize or increase fracture toughness.

Fracture Mechanics Capabilities Include:

• Specimen Thicknesses up to 120mm.
• Specimen Loading up to 2MN
• Temperature Range: –60°C to ambient (room)
• Std. Specimen Configurations (i.e. bending, tension, edge cracked, centre cracked, etc)

Crack Tip Opening Displacement (CTOD):

The Singapore facility’s featured service offering in this field is CTOD (Crack Tip Opening Displacement) testing which measures crack propagation through the widening (displacement) of the mouth of a crack in the edge or surface of a specimen. This test is offered in two configurations.

Single Edge Notched Bend (SENB) test refers to a CTOD test where a specimen is notched on a single edge and then placed in a 3 point bending configuration in order to observe crack propagation. This test is better used in situations where the primary stresses upon the material will be bending stresses.

Single Edge Notch Tension (SENT) test was developed specifically for the oil and gas pipeline industry in order to more closely reflect the behavior of products under primarily tension instead of bending stresses. In an SENT test the CTOD specimen is placed under tension instead of bending stress to induce cracking.

Steel Catenary Riser Fatigue (SCRF):

Portable SCRF service is a system of containerized and portable testing units for on-site fatigue testing of Steel Catenary Risers. Visit our detailed Portable SCRF service page here.

Engineering Critical Assessment (ECA)

Engineering Critical Assessment is a fracture mechanics based fitness-for-purpose (FFP) approach; it enables the significance of flaws to be assessed in a structure in regards to structural integrity. Visit our detailed ECA service page here.