| A new mechanism of fracture toughness enhancement in nanostructured materials containing inclusions of the second phase is suggested. The mechanism represents the cooperative grain boundary (GB) sliding and stress-driven GB migration process near the tips of growing cracks. It is shown that this mechanism can increase the critical stress intensity factor for crack growth in nanostructured materials with inclusions by a factor of two or more and thus considerably enhances the fracture toughness of such materials. |
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