Mechanistic transition between inter- and trans-granular creep cracking via a unified crystal plasticity-fracture framework
Abstract
High-temperature creep in metals remains challenging due to the complex interplay of deformation and failure mechanisms across multiple length scales. The trade-off between inter- and trans-granular cracking governs the transition of creep rupture behaviour in metallic materials. However, the micromechanical basis of the transition and its linkage to the macroscopic brittle to ductile transition in creep rupture behaviour remain unresolved. Here, the stress-dependent competition between grain-boundary cavitation and slip-induced intragranular cracking is revealed via a unified crystal plasticity fracture framework. The framework incorporates crystal plasticity, grain-boundary cavitation, and crystallographic crack propagation within an explicit polycrystalline microstructure. The microscale computation reveals the transition from trans-granular-dominated cracking at high stress levels to mixed inter- and trans-granular cracking at intermediate stresses and inter-granular-dominated cracking at lower stresses, accompanied by distinct damage localization modes and the evolution of crack paths from grain boundary to grain-interior propagation. The results further quantify the linkage between microscopic fracture mechanisms and macroscopic creep rupture behaviour, including changes in rupture ductility and creep life. Under high-stress conditions, deformation-driven trans-granular damage localization promotes ductile rupture through extensive strain accumulation, whereas under lower-stress conditions, time-dependent grain-boundary damage accumulation leads to quasi-brittle rupture through localized inter-granular fracture.
Related
- Dynamical and structural properties of an absorbing phase transition: a case study from granular systems
- Synchronization-controlled transport near an absorbing transition: Effective Enskog kinetic theory of a driven granular monolayer
- Atomistic Indicators of the Ductile-to-Brittle Transition in Polycrystalline Tungsten: Temperature and Rhenium Effects on Crack-Tip Plasticity
- Granular thermostat implementation within the soft-sphere Discrete Element Method (DEM) framework, considerations and limitations
- Constitutive State-Space Modeling of Path-Dependent Plasticity: A Resolution-Consistent and Parallelizable Computational Framework
BibTeX
@misc{kong2026mechanistic,
title = {{Mechanistic transition between inter- and trans-granular creep cracking via a unified crystal plasticity-fracture framework}},
author = {Weichen Kong and Yanwei Dai and Yue Wang and Haitao Wang and Yinghua Liu},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2610.07980},
eprint = {2610.07980},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.07980},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Mechanistic transition between inter- and trans-granular creep cracking via a unified crystal plasticity-fracture framework
AU - Weichen Kong
AU - Yanwei Dai
AU - Yue Wang
AU - Haitao Wang
AU - Yinghua Liu
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/06
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2610.07980
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.07980
AB - High-temperature creep in metals remains challenging due to the complex interplay of deformation and failure mechanisms across multiple length scales. The trade-off between inter- and trans-granular cracking governs the transition of creep rupture behaviour in metallic materials. However, the micromechanical basis of the transition and its linkage to the macroscopic brittle to ductile transition in creep rupture behaviour remain unresolved. Here, the stress-dependent competition between grain-boundary cavitation and slip-induced intragranular cracking is revealed via a unified crystal plasticity fracture framework. The framework incorporates crystal plasticity, grain-boundary cavitation, and crystallographic crack propagation within an explicit polycrystalline microstructure. The microscale computation reveals the transition from trans-granular-dominated cracking at high stress levels to mixed inter- and trans-granular cracking at intermediate stresses and inter-granular-dominated cracking at lower stresses, accompanied by distinct damage localization modes and the evolution of crack paths from grain boundary to grain-interior propagation. The results further quantify the linkage between microscopic fracture mechanisms and macroscopic creep rupture behaviour, including changes in rupture ductility and creep life. Under high-stress conditions, deformation-driven trans-granular damage localization promotes ductile rupture through extensive strain accumulation, whereas under lower-stress conditions, time-dependent grain-boundary damage accumulation leads to quasi-brittle rupture through localized inter-granular fracture.
ER -