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Acta Materialia 56 (2008) 6214–6223

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Controlled crack arrest in brittle thin films: The effect of embedded voids
Ling Liu, Xi Chen *
Department of Civil Engineering and Engineering Mechanics, Columbia University, 500 West 120th Street, New York, NY 10027-6699, USA

Received 3 April 2008; received in revised form 15 August 2008; accepted 17 August 2008
Available online 25 September 2008

Abstract

Controlled crack arrest is useful for controlling self-assembled crack paths in micro-fabrication, as well as limiting crack length in
toughening composites. Compliant inclusions and voids can effectively attract and arrest cracks, thereby controlling the crack pattern.
Analytical stress solution indicates that when the inclusion is about 10 times more compliant than its matrix, it may be effectively mod-
eled as a void. The crack arrest capability is expressed in terms of the critical angle of the initial crack path, as the inclusion size, shape,
crack origin and film properties are varied. Simple criteria are established to maximize the crack arrest ability and to determine the crit-
ical crack angle. The effectiveness of using different void patterns to arrest cracks is also explored. The results are useful for both con-
trolling and restricting cracks in brittle thin films, through the utilization of compliant or void-like inclusions as crack arrestors.
Ó 2008 Acta Materialia Inc. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Thin films; Fracture; Toughness; Kinetics self-organization & patterning; Simulation

1. Introduction as to guide the spontaneous formation of a highly ordered,

Thin films are often subjected to residual stresses inher-
ited from deposition and/or thermal expansion mismatch
with substrates. In many technologically important thin
films, large equibiaxial tensile stress is developed as the sys-
tem is cooled from an elevated deposition temperature or
as the film is dried; when such tensile stress exceeds a crit-
ical value in brittle thin films (e.g. NiAl film on Si substrate
[1] or SiO2 film on Si wafer [2]), fracture occurs and various
channel crack patterns have been observed [3], including
mud cracks [4], spiral cracks [5] and sinusoidal cracks [6].
Conventionally, cracks are regarded as a threat to sys-
tem integrity and should be avoided if possible. However,
controlled fracture in thin films may also be useful: in
recent years, mechanical self-assembly based on ordered
crack patterns has emerged as a competitive approach for
fabricating nanowires and nanochannels [2,7–10]. In
essence, various crack initiators and arrestors are embed-
ded in a film, whose shape and alignment are adjusted so
*
Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 212 854 3787; fax: +1 212 854 6267.
E-mail address: xichen@civil.columbia.edu (X. Chen).
stress-assisted fracture pattern. Since the typical crack
opening (gap) is on the order of nanometers, a network
of nanochannel is formed. Based on such a template, vari-
ous deposition methods may be employed to fill the crack
channels with a different material. Upon removal of the
original film material, the fillers become ordered nanowire
pattern [2,9]. Compared to the conventional photolithogra-
phy, such mechanical self-assembly is arguably more eco-
nomical and efficient, and it also involves rich mechanics
problems.
One of the key challenges of the self-assembly of frac-
ture is to guide the crack growth along an expected path.
Various types of crack initiators and arrestors may be
employed [2], which are regular-shaped dent-like features
(e.g. square, circular, annular, heart, etc.) patterned on
the substrate surface prior to film deposition, stressing
and cracking. In essence, the crack initiators and arrestors
in these experiments are voids (vacant ‘‘inclusions”)
embedded in thin films. While there are various ways to
initiate cracks along a given path (e.g. using a void or inclu-
sion with sharp tips [2], or applying pyramidal indentation
to nucleate radial cracks [11]), a comprehensive study on
the controlled crack arrest is still scarce. How large is the

1359-6454/$34.00 Ó 2008 Acta Materialia Inc. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.actamat.2008.08.038
 L. Liu, X. Chen / Acta Materialia 56 (2008) 6214–6223 6215

influence zone of an arrestor to effectively arrest cracks which is consistent with many previous experimental works
passing through its surrounding area? Is there a shape of on crack self-assembly and control. The crack arrest char-
crack arrestor that is more effective than others? Since ini- acteristics by single and patterned voids are discussed in
tial defects are inevitable in thin films, with a certain error Sections 4 and 5, respectively, where the inclusion shape/
of the orientation of the initiated crack, how will the arres- size, film/substrate properties and initial crack paths are
tor effectively rectify the crack path and how much will the all varied in large ranges, to address the key questions pro-
arrestor tolerate the initial error? These questions, along posed above.
with the influences of the size of crack arrestors and mate-
rial properties, will be explored through a systematic study 2. Model and computation method
and the findings could provide useful guidelines for
mechanical self-assembly with controlled fracture patterns. Fig. 1 is a schematic of the model under investigation. A
In addition to controlling cracks, compliant inclusions brittle elastic film (with Young’s modulus E and Poisson’s
(such as rubber or metal particles) have long been embed- ratio v) of thickness h is bonded to a substrate and sub-
ded in brittle matrix (such as ceramics or glass) so as to jected to a far-field equibiaxial stresses r0, which may be
enhance the fracture toughness [12–15]. Recently, micro- regarded as prestress (or residual stress) due to intrinsic
capsules filled with self-healing agents are incorporated stress (e.g. epitaxial stress, evaporation, vacancy annihila-
into brittle matrix to become self-healing polymers tion, or other stresses associated during the deposition pro-
[16,17]. When a crack passes through such compliant inclu- cess) and/or that due to thermal expansion mismatch
sions, the embedded microcapsule ruptures to release self- between film and substrate. We assume that r0 is suffi-
healing agent into the crack channel. In case the stiffness ciently high to sustain crack development and growth at
of the embedded phase is much smaller than the surround- all times until the crack is arrested by the arrestor (which
ing matrix, the compliant inclusion may be effectively mod- is a void or a ductile and compliant toughening phase).
eled as a void. Again, the interaction between the crack Once initiated, a channel crack in the film may be attracted
path and the characteristics of a crack arrestor is critical. to an embedded arrestor so as to release the strain energy.
Besides the questions proposed above for a single crack A circular vacant inclusion (void) is shown in Fig. 1 as a
arrestor, when multiple crack arrestors are employed, it is representative example of crack arrestors, although its
interesting to explore whether an ordered pattern or a ran- characteristics can be varied.
dom mixture would give rise to the best crack stopping or Owing to the bonding between film and substrate, the
controlling probability. This is another objective of the deformation associated with crack formation and exten-
present paper which would provide useful insight on how sion in the film is expected to influence the substrate via
to effectively constrain the averaged crack length by their interface, and thus the substrate tends to impede the
employing arrays of crack arrestors, thereby enhancing crack opening due to its in-plane resistance. In the shear
the system integrity. lag model proposed by Xia and Hutchinson [5], such inter-
In this paper, we carry out a theoretical and numerical action is characterized as a shear stress at the interface:
study on the controlled crack propagation and arrest in
brittle thin films, focusing on the effect of embedded voids.
In order to reduce the computational effort, we adopt a
shear lag model [5] to describe the in-plane deformation
of thin films such that all field equations are approximated
in two-dimensions. The model is solved numerically via the
extended finite element method (XFEM) [18], which is
powered by multiple enrichment functions around discon-
tinuities, and it is a versatile numerical tool to solve crack
propagation problems without remeshing [19]. Appropriate
adoption of enrichments can extend the XFEM to study
other discontinuities, such as inclusions [20] and disloca-
tions [21].
In Section 2, we describe the shear lag model and its dis-
cretized form for numerical solution via XFEM, following
the work by Liang et al. [4]. Based on the shear lag model,
new closed-form solutions are derived in Section 3 for the
stress field around a circular inclusion embedded in a thin
film. Proper bounds are deduced such that when the stiff-
ness of the inclusion is much smaller than the brittle
matrix, the inclusion can be effectively modeled as a void.
Such simplification enables us to focus on the effect of Fig. 1. Schematic of the model: a crack is attracted by a vacant inclusion
voids on controlled crack arrest in the following sections, in a biaxially stretched thin film bonded to a substrate.
6216 L. Liu, X. Chen / Acta Materialia 56 (2008) 6214–6223

sa ¼ kua ð1Þ the crack extension path is determined following the max-
where all Greek subscripts in this paper vary from 1 to 2. k imum hoop stress law [18]
 
is a spring constant which can be calibrated by the energy hp 2K II =K I
tan ¼ qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi ð9Þ
release rate of a semi-infinite isolated crack [5], and ua de- 2 2
1 þ 1 þ 8ðK II =K I Þ
notes the in-plane displacement of the thin film. By relating
the substrate resistance to the film deformation via Eq. (1), where hp denotes the angle between the last crack segment
the thin film can be modeled as an elastic isotropic solid un- and the new putative crack segment, KI and KII are the
der plane-stress condition without explicitly incorporating mode I and mode II stress intensity factors at the crack
the substrate. The equilibrium for the film can be expressed tip, respectively. Note that the crack propagation rule de-
by scribed in Eq. (9) is dimensionless and thus it does not
rab;b ¼ sa =h ð2Þ explicitly depend on the magnitude of the film stress r0.
When results are expressed in dimensionless terms, as long
where h denotes the film thickness. The stress field rab is as we assume that r0 is sufficiently large or the film is suf-
composed of two parts, one caused by the inclusion and ficiently brittle, the magnitude of r0 would not affect the
crack advancement and the other caused by the intrinsic crack path or the controlled crack arrest characteristics.
film stress, i.e.
E 3. Fundamental stress solution for a circular compliant/void
rab ¼ ½ð1  vÞeab þ vecc dab  þ r0 dab ð3Þ
1  v2 inclusion
where dab is the Kronecker delta. Assuming small deforma-
tion, the associated in-plane strain components are In essence, when an inclusion is embedded in a film, the
stress field near the inclusion is disturbed and such stress
ua;b þ ub;a
eab ¼ ð4Þ concentration decays away from the inclusion. The local
2 stress field exerts a large influence on the path of a crack
Combining Eqs. (1)–(4), the Navier equation for the elastic passing nearby the inclusion and the crack tends to seek
problem can be written as a path that releases as much strain energy as possible. As
  a first step, it is important to understand the stress influence
2 1 1
L ua;bb þ ub;ba ¼ ua ð5Þ zone of an inclusion as well as its dependency on inclusion/
2ð1 þ vÞ 2ð1  vÞ
qffiffiffiffi matrix materials and geometries. In order to take advan-
where L ¼ Eh k
is introduced as a reference length that tage of axisymmetry, we consider an isolated circular
could be used for normalization purposes, and it contains inclusion of radius a embedded in an infinite film. The
important information of film/substrate properties and shear lag model is used to describe the effect of substrate.
thus a critical variable governing the crack propagation. Young’s modulus is assumed to be E for the matrix and
According to Xia and Hutchinson [5], L is typically of Ei for the inclusion; the difference in Poisson’s ratio is
the same order as the film thickness h. neglected for simplicity. In addition, we assume the pre-
The discretization of the field equations using the stress in the film layer is linearly related with the Young’s
XFEM approach is similar to that described in Ref. [4], modulus, i.e. the matrix and the inclusion are subjected
except that an elastic substrate is considered in the present to equibiaxial stresses of r0 and r0Ei/E, respectively.
paper instead of an elastic underlayer over a rigid sub- In a polar coordinate system where r is the radial coor-
strate. The discretized governing equation takes the follow- dinate, Eq. (5) becomes
ing form:  
uðrÞ;r 1 1
Ku ¼ f ð6Þ uðrÞ;rr þ  2 þ 2 uðrÞ ¼ 0 ð10Þ
Z Z r r L
T k
K¼ B DBdX þ BT BdX ð7Þ for both inclusion and matrix, where u(r) denotes the radial
X h X displacement. Correspondingly, the radial stress rR and the
Z
f ¼  BT r0 dX ð8Þ hoop stress rH take the following forms, respectively:
X e h
E v i
where K denotes the system stiffness matrix, u the vector of rR ¼ uðrÞ;r þ uðrÞ þ e r0 ð11Þ
1v 2 r
nodal displacements, f the force vector, D the constitutive  
e
E uðrÞ
matrix for plane-stress problems, B the strain–displacement rH ¼ þ vuðrÞ ;r þ e
r0 ð12Þ
matrix with XFEM enrichments, B the shape function ma- 1  v2 r
trix incorporating XFEM enrichments, and X the compu- where E e and e r 0 equal to E and r0 outside the inclusion,
tational domain. In Eq. (7), the second term on the right- and Ee and e r 0 equal to Ei and r0Ei/E inside the inclusion,
hand side implies that the bonding with substrate in fact respectively.
‘‘strengthens” the film in resisting in-plane deformations. We denote the displacement, radial stress, and hoop
The crack propagation path is solved incrementally. At stress within the inclusion (r 6 a) as ui, riR and riH, respec-
each numerical increment, the stress field is computed and tively, and the subscript i is dropped in the solution of field
 L. Liu, X. Chen / Acta Materialia 56 (2008) 6214–6223 6217

variables in the inclusion. The following boundary condi- r0 when Ei goes to 1. On the other hand, the stress values
tions are imposed: the displacement is zero at the center show only small variations as Ei becomes lower than 0.1,
of the inclusion, ui(0) = 0; both the radial stress and dis- and almost no variation when Ei < 0:01. This suggests that
placement should be continuous at the inclusion–matrix a compliant inclusion satisfying Ei < 0:01 is equivalent to a
interface, ui(a) = u(a) and riR(a) = rR(a); and the displace- void in terms of the resulting stress field. Since this stress
ment remains zero at infinity, u(1) = 0. By imposing these field as revealed later is inherently relevant to the crack path
constraints, the stress field outside the inclusion is solved as and arrest, for simplicity we could effectively replace a com-
  pliant inclusion (with Ei < 0:01) by a void of the same shape,
ðEi  1Þ½ arI 1 ð
aÞK 0 ð
arÞ þ I 1 ð
aÞK 1 ðarÞ  vI 1 ðaÞK 1 ð
arÞ
rR ðEi ;a;rÞ ¼ r0 þ1 and such simplification is consistent with many previous
rQðEi ; a;rÞ
  experiments, e.g. using compliant particles to toughen
ðEi  1Þ½vI 1 ð aÞK 1 ð
arÞ þ v arI 1 ð
aÞK 0 ð
arÞ  I 1 ð
aÞK 1 ð
arÞ
rH ðEi ; a;rÞ ¼ r0 þ1 ceramics [12–15], using self-healing capsules to enhance
a;rÞ
rQðEi ; 
QðEi ;a;rÞ ¼ aI 1 ðaÞK 0 ðaÞ þ I 1 ð
aÞK 1 ð
aÞ  vI 1 ð aÞK 1 ðaÞ þ Ei aI 0 ð
aÞK 1 ð
aÞ fracture resistance [16,17], and using dent-like features to
 Ei I 1 ðaÞK 1 ðaÞ þ vEi I 1 ð
aÞK 1 ð
aÞ ð13Þ arrest cracks in self-assembly [2]. Moreover, one could
extend such simplification to an upper bound of about
where  a ¼ a=L; r ¼ r=a; Ei ¼ Ei =E, and In(x) and Kn(x) de- Ei < 0:1, which tends to bring about approximately 20%
note the Bessel function of the first kind and the Bessel deviation to the stress field by comparing a void with a com-
function of the second kind, respectively. It is readily seen pliant inclusion; and the resulting crack arrest capability is
that both stress components are functions of the Young’s not to be significantly affected, which is verified by our crack
modulus ratio Ei , the normalized inclusion radius a, and growth simulations.
the normalized radial coordinate r. As will be discussed la- Based on these arguments, in the following sections we
a ¼ a=L is also a critical factor controlling the crack ar-
ter,  focus on the effects of void-like crack arrestors, and the find-
rest. In this section, we only focus on the influence of the ings can be readily extended to compliant inclusions. We also
stiffness ratio between the two phases, so as to search for note that the stress variation around a void is more signifi-
a bound within which a compliant inclusion may be mod- cant than that around a solid inclusion (Fig. 2), indicating
eled as a void. that when other parameters are fixed, the crack arrest capa-
Fig. 2 plots the stress solutions for four Ei (0.5, 0.1, 0.01 bility using a vacant inclusion is the best (compared with
and 0) and two representative a/L (1 and 10). Ei ¼ 0 is using solid inclusions). Thus, the study of crack arrest char-
intended to mimic a vacant inclusion (void). It is shown that acteristics using void-like inclusions could yield an impor-
the normalized stress gets closer to 1 with larger Ei , indicat- tant theoretical limit, as well as of potential practical value.
ing that a lower contrast between the two materials is closer In the case of a compliant inclusion with Ei < 0:01 or a
to the homogenous condition (since the film stress should be vacant inclusion, the closed form stress solutions can be
uniformly r0 if no mismatch presents between the inclusion achieved either by deducing Eq. (13) with Ei ¼ 0, or by
and the matrix). This limit can be derived from Eq. (13), solving Eq. (10) for matrix only with boundary conditions
where both stress components equal to the far-field stresses u = 0(r = 1) and rR = 0(r = a). The results are
1.5  
r arK 0 ðarÞ þ ð1  vÞK 1 ðarÞ
a r R ¼ r0 þ1 ð14Þ
θ r½aK 0 ðaÞ  K 1 ðaÞ þ vK 1 ðaÞ
 
arvK 0 ðarÞ  ð1  vÞK 1 ðarÞ
rH ¼ r0 þ1 ð15Þ
r½aK 0 ðaÞ  K 1 ðaÞ þ vK 1 ðaÞ
1.0
In this case, stresses are dependent on a/L and r/L.
Solutions Eqs. (14) and (15) are plotted in Fig. 3 where
σ / σ0

a/L is varied between 1 and 3.5. The radial stress rR starts

Ei /E = 0.5 0.1 0.01 0 from 0 at the void boundary and gradually arises to r0,
0.5 although the speed of arising is quicker if a/L is larger; in
σH, a/L=1
σH, a/L=10
other words, when other conditions are fixed, the radial
stress approaches rR more quickly if the film is more com-
σR, a/L=10
pliant or thinner. The hoop stress rH also converges to r0
σR, a/L=1 far away from the inclusion, but the trend is distinct with
0.0
1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5 respect to different a/L. When a/L is relatively small, rH
r/a is above r0, and when a/L is larger than about 3.1, rH is
below r0. Such contrasting trends are caused by the non-
Fig. 2. The analytical stress field outside a circular inclusion, when the zero Poisson’s ratio v (which is kept as 0.3 in the current
film is subjected to equibiaxial tensile stress. Multiple material stiffness
study), although the hoop strain eH is always positive
ratios Ei ¼ Ei =E are examined to explore the dependence of the stress field
on the elastic mismatch ( Ei ¼ 0 represents a void inclusion). The results of (the inclusion is enlarged upon prestress). A good match
Ei ¼ 0:01 and Ei ¼ 0 almost overlap, indicating that with Ei < 0:01 a is found between the stress fields obtained from the
compliant inclusion could be effectively modeled as a void. numerical solution via XFEM and the analytical study
6218 L. Liu, X. Chen / Acta Materialia 56 (2008) 6214–6223

1.5 tered at point C and a short crack segment is initiated from

r
a point O. The distance between C and O is d, and the incli-
θ
nation
! angle of the initial crack segment is h with respect to
OC . One end of the initial crack is pinned at O (e.g. by a
crack initiator), and the other end is an active tip to prop-
1.0
agate forward according to the XFEM simulation and the
shear lag model described earlier.
σ / σ0

Three primary dimensionless variables govern the prob-

lem under investigation: a/L, d/a, and h. The first one is
0.5 σR, a/L=1 σR, a/L=10 related with the inclusion size and film/substrate proper-
σH, a/L=1 σH, a/L=10
ties; the second variable is the normalized separation
between the crack initiator and arrestor; and the third var-
σR, a/L=3.16 σR, a/L=1, numerical
iable describes the initial crack path which is employed to
σH, a/L=3.16 σH, a/L=1, numerical study the effect of crack arrestors. Note that without the
0.0 inclusion, in a homogeneous film the crack would propa-
1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5
gate straightforward along its initial path. As a theoretical
r/a study, the following discussions are dedicated to establish-
Fig. 3. The analytical stress field near a circular void embedded in a thin ing the relationships among these governing dimensionless
film. Numerical XFEM solutions for the case of a/L = 1 are shown in quantities, and the results may guide the microstructural
squares. The arrows show the boundaries of the extended influence zone design of voids as crack arrestors.
(ae/a) for crack arrest in various cases.
At typical values of a/L = 1 and d/a = 6, from Fig. 4a it
for a/L = 1, which also verifies the numerical algorithm can be readily seen that the crack path is strongly influ-
adopted in this paper. enced by the arrestor and the crack tends to be attracted
An important observation from Fig. 2 is that, as both by the circular void; depending on the initial inclination
stress components decay away from the void boundary angle h, some cracks (with smaller h) are arrested by the
(r = a), there seems to exist a region outside which the inclusion while others (with larger h) escape. Therefore, a
stress variation is relatively insignificant. This suggests that critical angle hcr must exist for any given combination of
the stress concentration near an inclusion has a limited a/L and d/a, below which the crack is arrested and beyond
influence zone. In Fig. 3, the radius of the influence zone which the crack may escape. From controlled crack arrest
is found to decrease with the increase of a/L, which will point of view, it is often desirable to maximize hcr so as to
be connected to the crack arrest capability discussed below. arrest more cracks to enhance system integrity; a large hcr
also means that the system can tolerate larger errors in
4. Crack arrest by individual voids the crack initiation during mechanical self-assembly, such
that cracks are easier to converge to the desired destination
4.1. Critical angle for crack arrest dictated by the crack arrestor. The critical angle hcr is,
therefore, adopted as a quantitative measure of the crack
We first consider the interaction between a crack path arrest capability in the following analysis.
and a representative circular void as sketched in Fig. 1. For given values of a/it L and d/a hcr, can be evaluated
With reference to Fig. 4a, an inclusion of radius a is cen- through a searching process where h is varied within its

θ cr
a
C

d a/L =
d/a =
0.1
θ= 4
5 1
28
6 3.16
θ 26
30 8 10
10 100
29
O
Fig. 4. The crack paths in various conditions: (a). a/L = 1, d/a = 6 and h is varied to search for the critical angle hcr; (b). Critical cracks for a/L = 1 and
varying d/a show the influence of crack origin; (c). Critical cracks for d/a =6 and varying a/L show the influence of inclusion size.
 L. Liu, X. Chen / Acta Materialia 56 (2008) 6214–6223
allowable range (from 0° to 180°), and the critical angle is
identified as the largest angle at which the crack is arrested
by the void. Note that the resolution of the variation of h is
1° in the present numerical searching procedure, and thus
the maximum error of hcr is about 1°. In the illustrative
case shown in Fig. 4a, hcr = 28°.
The crack arrest capability is examined with respect to
varying d/a and a/L. In the present study, d/a is varied
between 4 and 10. Such a range is regarded as sufficient
to reveal a general rule governing the critical crack orienta-
tions, discussed below. The range of variation of a/L is
much larger since L, as well as its component parameters,
E, h and k, can vary in large ranges. In the present study,
a/L is varied between 0.01 and 1000 from which proper
bounds of hcr can be deduced.
Fig. 5 plots the variation of hcr with respect to d/a and a/
L. At a constant a/L, hcr is always larger for smaller d/a;
that is, a crack initiated closer to the void is more likely
to be arrested. On the other hand, when d/a is fixed, only
within a small range of a/L (from about 1 to 30 for allit
a/it L studied) will the resulting hcr experience a significant
change; outside such range two plateaus hcr of are identified
as its upper and lower limits, respectively. This implies that
the maximum crack arrest capability could be achieved for
circular inclusions when a/L is smaller than about 1. In
terms of the crack path control or the error tolerance of
the crack initiation, one should choose a/L smaller than 1
for better system performance. In terms of crack length
control (for safety consideration), it is desirable to further
reduce a on the basis of a/L < 1, such that the crack path
(from initiation to arrest) can be shorter.
4.2. Extended influence zone for crack arrest
We now examine in detail the effects of d/a and a/L on
hcr. When a/L is fixed at 1, Fig. 4b shows the propagation
paths of critical cracks with varied d/a. Here, the critical
60
d/a =
50
a 5
40
d
θcr (degree)
30 θcr
20
10
0 prominent. Such consistency verifies that a crack can be
0.01 0.1 1 10 100
a/L
Fig. 5. The variation of critical angle hcr as a function of a/L and d/a. A
sharp transition domain and two plateaus are found with respect to a/L.
6219
crack path refers to the crack whose initial angle is hcr.
Although all cracks are arrested at the right side of the
inclusion, the ending (final arrested) point does not seem
to follow any clear trend, due to the complicated interac-
tion between the stress fields at the crack tip and around
the inclusion. In fact, as shown in Fig. 4a, even a variation
of two degrees (26° and 28°) in the initial orientation could
significantly affect the final arrested position.
Nevertheless, despite the variation of d/a, when we
extend the critical cracks along their initial directions, it
is found that all such extended lines share a common prop-
erty: the distances from the center of the inclusion to these
extended lines are almost the same (Fig. 6a). In other
words, the extensions of all critical cracks are tangential
to a shared circular region, and it is applicable to all values
of d/a under investigation. In the example of Fig. 6a where
a/L = 1, the radius of the shared circular region (ae) is
about three times a, which may be regarded as an extended
influence zone for the potential crack arrest of a void-like
inclusion. For any crack, if the extension of its initial seg-
ment passes through such extended influence zone, it will
be arrested by the void. This concept is further confirmed
for othera/L values.
The identification of the extended influence zone can
help to determine hcr without repeating the numerical
searching procedure stated above. As illustrated in
Fig. 6b, given the extended influence zone of radius ae,
the critical angle can be approximated by sin1(ae/d) for
a crack initiated with the separation of d from the inclusion
center. The ratio ae/a of depends on a/L (Fig. 6c), following
the same trend as hcr (Fig. 5). Hence, ae/d is another
parameter characterizing the crack arrest capability, and
it should be related to the stress influence zone derived in
Section 3.
According to the stress field solution around a circular
void (Fig. 3), while the radial stress is zero at the void
boundary, the hoop stress is nonzero, which leads to stress
concentration near the void. A crack would therefore pre-
fer to cut the film near the void boundary in order to par-
tially release the stress concentration; this is the physical
4 reason why a crack could be attracted and arrested by a
vacant inclusion in thin films. Once a crack feels the pertur-
6
8 bation of the stress field caused by the void, it would start
10 to interact with the void, change its propagation direction,
and finally be arrested. In Fig. 3, where the analytical stress
field around an isolated void (without crack) is given for
selected a/L values, we also use arrows to denote the corre-
sponding values of ae/a taken from the XFEM crack arrest
simulations (Fig. 6c). It is found from Fig. 3 that the size of
the extended influence zone for crack arrest, ae/a, is closely
related with the stress variation near the void; basically,
beyond the stress perturbation with respect to r0 is less
1000
attracted only when it feels the stress fluctuation caused
by the inclusion.
The effect of a/L on the stress field (Fig. 3) is very similar
to what it does to the critical angle and the size of the
6220 L. Liu, X. Chen / Acta Materialia 56 (2008) 6214–6223

Extended influence zone

3.0

ae a ae 2.5

ae / a
2.0

1.5
d
1.0
0.01 0.1 1 10 100 1000
a/L

Estimated θ cr
Origin of crack
Fig. 6. The extended influence zone: (a). When the critical cracks in Fig. 4b (e.g. the green dash line shown here) are extended along their initial
orientations (e.g. the green solid line shown here), such extended lines are tangential to an extended influence zone centered at the void center; (b). An
empirical method for determining hcr: from any crack origin, draw a line tangential to the extended influence zone and another through the inclusion
center, and the angle between the two lines approximates the critical angle; (c). The variation of the size of the extended influence zone (ae/a) with respect
to a/L.(For interpretation of color mentioned in this figure the reader is referred to the web version of the article.)

extended influence zone. Fig. 4c shows the extension paths that other shapes of inclusions may result in better capabil-
of critical cracks for varied a/L and fixed d/a of 6. When ities of crack arrest due to the stress singularity caused by
a/L is small, the stress varies very slowly from the void sharp structural features. Indeed, several other shapes of
(Fig. 3) and hence the influence zone is large, and the crack inclusions were used in [2] although their advantages were
immediately feels the presence of the void and starts to not explored experimentally.
adjust its direction, and the crack path is curved through- In order to clarify this problem, for representative com-
out its growth. At a larger a/L, the crack tends to keep binations of d/a and a/L, we compare the critical angle for a
straight for longer distance before it is turned toward the circular void with those for square and heart-shaped inclu-
inclusion after it feels the stress field of the void. Again, sions. All inclusions have the same area, and d is measured
when other parameters are fixed, systems with smaller with respect to the geometrical center of inclusions. Results
a/L have better crack arrest capabilities. of hcr are shown in Table 1. No prominent difference is
While the influence zone is responsible for the initial cur- observed among different shapes; the largest difference in
vature of the crack path, from the cracking path point of an individual case is only about three degrees. For all cases
view, the transition from a straight crack to a curved crack of d/a and a/L studied, it seems no particular shape could
under equibiaxial tension is always associated with a drop be universally more effective than the other two. Moreover,
in the stress intensity factor KI at the crack tip [5]; however, the conclusion holds even if the relative orientation of
a crack should always seek the maximum energy release
rate corresponding to mode I [3,22]. In order to maintain
KI during the straight-to-curved transition, the ratio Table 1
between the radius of curvature of the curved crack and The dependence of the critical angle hcr on different shapes of inclusions
the reference length L needs to be kept above a certain level hcr (a/L, d/a)
[5]. Consequently, with fixed a, larger a/L implies smaller L
Inclusion shape (10, 4) (3.16, 4) (1, 4) (0.1, 4) (1, 6) (1, 8)
and therefore increased crack curvature. This can be con-
firmed in Fig. 4c, where for larger a/L, the ending curvature Circle 22° 29° 46° 50° 28° 21°
of the crack path (near the inclusion) is quite large.
Square 21° 31° 45° 51° 29° 22°
4.3. Effect of void shape

While the crack arrest ability of a circular void-like Heart 23° 30° 44° 53° 29° 21°
inclusion has been experimentally demonstrated [2] and
numerically discussed in the present paper, it is arguable Various combinations of a/L and d/a are examined.
 L. Liu, X. Chen / Acta Materialia 56 (2008) 6214–6223
inclusions with respect to the crack origin is varied. Hence,
the circular inclusion is recommended thanks to its axisym-
metry and the ability to attract cracks from all directions.
5. Crack arrest by patterned voids
Any inclusion discussed in the last section can be consid-
ered as a toughening or healing phase to strengthen films,
which could effectively arrest cracks. It is interesting to
compare the crack arrest capability of different inclusion
patterns, in terms of the mean or median crack length
before cracks are effectively stopped and such a parameter
is directly relevant to the system integrity. Although the
real problem may involve three-dimensional patterns of
spherical inclusions, in this paper we study two-dimen-
sional patterns of circular voids so as to gain some useful
insights. Three patterns are studied as shown in Fig. 7:
square, triangular, and random; the first two are regular
arrangements. For all cases, the volume fraction of inclu-
sion, V, and the void size, a, are supposed to be known
in advance; for a combination of V and a, the separations
between inclusions can be determined for the square and
triangular patterns; in the case of random pattern, inclu-
sions are scattered randomly with given V and a.
Two indexes, the mean crack length and the median
crack length1, are evaluated based on a two-step Monte
Carlo simulation routine for all patterned inclusion systems
under investigation, in order to quantify their abilities of
containing cracks. In the first step, a number of sample sys-
tems are generated, each with a randomly initiated crack
(and randomly distributed inclusions for the case of ran-
dom pattern). The crack is assumed to be randomly placed
outside the inclusion domains and its initial orientation is
also random. The second step is to identify the length of
the arrested crack for each sample system, and derive the
mean and median crack lengths for a given pattern and a
volume fraction V. As mentioned earlier, if the initial orien-
tation of a crack can intersect the extended influence zone
of an inclusion, it would be effectively arrested by that
inclusion (Fig. 7). We therefore adopt this simple criterion
to determine crack arrest, and the crack length is approxi-
mated by the separation between the crack origin and the
inclusion center. Note that the current evaluation of crack
length subjects to errors from three sources: first, the cur-
rent approach neglects interactions between neighboring
inclusions, so the criterion of crack arrest derived for indi-
vidual inclusions may be biased; second, real crack paths
are always curved, not straight as in our approximation;
third, although a particular inclusion is not able to arrest
a crack, it may change its curvature as the crack passes
by, which may influence crack arrest characteristics. Never-
1
As will be elaborated below, cracks of very long lengths are observed in
thin films containing sparse and regularly patterned voids (e.g. V < 0.01,
square or triangular pattern), leading to non-normal distribution of the
arrested crack length and in some cases the standard deviations may be on
the same order as the average values.
6221
Square Triangular Random
Initial crack
orientation
Approximated
crack length
Fig. 7. The three patterns of inclusions and the evaluation of crack length
with the help of the extended influence zone.
theless, such errors should be of the same order for all pat-
terns under discussion, and thus the current approach
should still yield a qualitative ranking among the three
patterns.
In principle, the mean crack length varies with respect to
V and a/L. From the study on an individual void, a repre-
sentative a/L = 1 is sufficient for maximizing the crack
arrest probability and thus this value is fixed. As V and
the void pattern are varied, Fig. 8 shows the results of
the mean and median crack length normalized by a.
Indeed, the two evaluation indexes not only give results
with different absolute values, but more importantly, also
rank the three patterns in distinct orders. According to
the index of mean crack length, the random pattern is supe-
rior in constraining crack length when V is lower than
about 5%; otherwise, regular patterns take over. When
the median index is adopted, however, the random pattern
turns out to be inferior to the other two patterns in all
ranges of V. These contrasting results, analyzed below, sug-
gest that depending on the goal to be pursued for the crack
arresting system, different inclusion pattern may be chosen.
For example, for the sake of the system integrity, it may be
sometimes more desirable to limit the averaged length of all
possible cracks, or to control the possibility (e.g. 50%) of
letting the crack length to be below a certain threshold.
In order to more clearly reveal the mechanism, distribu-
tion maps of the normalized crack length are shown in
Fig. 9. Here, the x-axis represents various ranges of the
crack length, and the y-axis is their probability. Two cases
are investigated, one with lower V = 0.01 and the other
with higher V = 0.05. According to Fig. 8 and 9, the rank-
ing of mean crack length among void patterns is distinct
when the volume fraction is changed. However, in terms
of the distribution of crack lengths, no significant difference
6222 L. Liu, X. Chen / Acta Materialia 56 (2008) 6214–6223

due to the local non-uniformity of inclusions, the possibil-

90 ity of getting cracks of medium sizes increases for random
Mean, Triangular
Mean, Square pattern, which could significantly trade off its advantage
60 Mean, Random over regular patterns in long cracks. As shown in Fig. 8,
Normalized crack length

the random pattern yields longer median crack length

30
within the ranges of V studied in this paper. The median
of the regular patterns, on the other hand, is less sensitive
0
to a small number of very large values of crack lengths,
40 Median, Triangular and thus the median may be employed a better reference
Median, Square
Median, Random
value than the average length (although the later is also
useful).
20

6. Conclusion
0
0.00 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.10 In this paper, controlled crack arrest in brittle thin films
Volume fraction of inclusions, V via void-like individual inclusions and inclusion patterns is
studied using XFEM. A shear lag model is employed to
Fig. 8. The mean and median crack lengths (normalized by the inclusion
size a) as functions of the void volume fraction, V, for different void mimic the effect of the substrate. Analytical solution of
patterns. the stress field near an isolated circular inclusion is derived,
based on which we conclude that a compliant inclusion
1.0 may be effectively modeled by a void when the inclusion
High V, Random is about 10–100 times more compliant than its matrix. By
High V, Triangular
0.9 simplifying the inclusion into a void, the studies in this
High V, Square
Low V, Random paper also provide an important theoretical bound to gen-
Low V, Triangular eral solid inclusions, since when everything else is fixed,
Distribution

0.8
0.2
0.1
0.0
0-20 20-40 40-60
0-80 80-160 160-240
Normalized crack length
Fig. 9. The distribution of the crack length normalized by for low
V = 0.01 and high V = 0.05. Each bar shows the percentage of cracks
within the indicated length range among all sample cracks.
is observed among these three patterns. The overall trend is
that the randomly arranged voids lead to more cracks with
medium length, while the regular arrangements of voids
perform better in confining cracks to short length but some
very long cracks could be produced.
When a regular pattern is employed, there is a small
chance that the crack path may be initiated exactly along
the principal directions of the pattern and theoretically,
the crack would go infinitely long without being arrested
by any inclusion. Therefore, within a Monte Carlo simula-
tion, sometimes very long cracks may be produced if their
initial path is very close to the principal directions. These
cracks tend to increase the resulting mean crack length as
well as the variation of the crack length for regular pat-
terns, and such deficiency is more prominent when V is
very low. In contrast, for the random pattern, the probabil-
ity of having very long cracks is much smaller, leading to a
shorter mean crack length in the case of low V. However,
Low V, Square using a void can better attract or guide cracks than using
other fillers for crack arrestors.
When a crack initiates in a thin film embedding a circu-
lar void (Fig. 4a), two dimensionless variables are
employed to characterize the system: the normalized void
size, a/L, and the normalized separation between the void
and the crack origin, d/a. As the initial crack extension
direction, h, continuously changes within an allowable
60-80 80-
240-320 320- range (0–180°), it is found that only when h is smaller than
a critical angle, hcr, can the crack be finally arrested by the
embedded void. Since each combination of a/L and d/a cor-
responds to a single hcr, and a larger hcr implies a higher
probability for arresting randomly initiated cracks, the crit-
ical angle, hcr, is therefore identified as a critical parameter
characterizing the crack arrestor system.
We further study the evolution of hcr with respect to
both d/a and a/L. When d/a is fixed (Fig. 5), with the
increase of a/L, hcr first experiences an upper plateau
(a/L < 1), then rapidly drops by 40–60% within a narrow
range (a/L = 1–30), and finally falls to a lower plateau
(a/L>30) where no more significant variation is observed.
Since larger hcr is favored for being able to arrest more ran-
domly directed cracks, a simple yet effective criterion can
be established for maximizing the crack arrest probability;
that is, systems with smaller a/L can perform better, and
more specifically, a/L < 1 is desired.
When a/L is fixed, hcr decreases with increasing d/a. Nev-
ertheless, an extended influence zone can be identified such
that a crack would be arrested by the void if the extension
of its initial path intersects the extended influence zone.
This zone is closely relevant to the stress concentration
around the void, and beyond such zone the stress
 L. Liu, X. Chen / Acta Materialia 56 (2008) 6214–6223
perturbation is relatively negligible. In other words, a crack
tends to be attracted (and eventually arrested) by a void
only when it feels the prominent stress field caused by the
void, such that the system strain energy can be alleviated.
The size of the extended influence zone is also dependent
on a/L, in the same fashion hcr as for any given d/a.
The performance of crack arrestors using isolated circu-
lar inclusions is compared with those using square and
heart-shaped voids. No prominent difference is observed
in terms of the critical angle, which suggests that the void
shape is not an important parameter of pursuing higher
crack arrest ability.
When a group of circular voids form a pattern, a Monte
Carlo simulation is employed to estimate the mean/median
crack length (the effective length of randomly initiated cracks
before being arrested). It is found that, in terms of the mean
crack length, the random arrangement of inclusions is
superior when the void volume fraction V is below 5%, while
the regular patterns (such as triangular and square patterns)
are advantageous only when more voids are embedded in the
thin film. While the median crack length is considered,
however, random pattern loses its advantage in all ranges
of V studied. These ranks, resulted from the geometrical pros
and cons of various patterns, reveals the effectiveness of
patterns are strongly case dependent, not only relevant to
the prescribed value of V, but also relying on the specific
evaluation index (mean or median).
The results of this paper may be useful for controlling
ordered crack patterns using crack arrestors in mechanical
self-assembly, which complements the self-assembled buck-
ling and delamination patterns in thin films [23–27] and the
indentation guided crack patterns [28–30], thus enriching
the theoretical basis of mechanical self-assembly. In addi-
tion, the present study provides important insights for
effectively capturing cracks using toughening phases to
ensure system integrity.
Acknowledgments
The work is supported in part by NSF CMMI-CA-
REER-0643726, and in part by the Department of Civil
6223
Engineering and Engineering Mechanics, Columbia
University.
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