A coupled crystal-plasticity and phase-field model for understanding fracture behaviors of single crystal tungsten

The brittle-ductile transition (BDT) of tungsten depends heavily on temperature-dependent dislocation mobility. To well understand the underlying mechanism of tungsten fracture behavior, the dislocation activities need to be well described, but the related model remains limited. In this work, a coupled crystal-plasticity and phase-field model (CP-PFM) is developed based on a unified thermodynamic framework, which considers the thermal activated kink-pair mechanism of screw dislocation motion, the evolution of dislocation density, and the coupling effects between the plasticity and the crack propagation. The developed model can well predict the experimental results and is used to study the BDT process of tungsten. Four typical fracture processes are disclosed depending on the temperature, including the brittle fracture, semi-brittle fracture, micro-ductile fracture and ductile fracture. They exhibit different micro-cleavage crack features, induced by the competition between the shielding effect of the plastic zone and the crack propagation near the crack tip zone. In addition, the fracture process of tungsten is found to be significantly influenced by non-Schmid effect in the low and medium temperature regimes.