Brittle fracture beyond the stress intensity factor

It is commonly believed that the fracture toughness of a brittle material can be characterized by a single parameter such as the stress intensity factor. In this study, it was demonstrated that when the crack is highly constrained, the first nonsingular opening stress term at the crack tip, in addition to the K-field (the singular stress term), is necessary to predict fracture. Fracture experiments were conducted using plexiglass specimens with a center crack. Relatively rigid metallic end tabs were used to generate boundary constraints on the specimen. The level of constraint was varied by varying the gage length between the end tabs. For a given crack length, the fracture load increases as the gage length decreases. If the stress intensity factor is used to determine the corresponding fracture toughness of plexiglass, the experimental data would indicate that the fracture toughness decreases as the gage length decreases. This is equivalent to saying that the fracture toughness of a brittle material can be affected by boundary conditions. It was shown that this behavior is the result of a diminishing size of the K-dominance zone and that the stress intensity factor alone cannot fully capture the fracture force. A new constant parameter was introduced to account for the effect of the near-tip nonsingular stress field on fracture. 1.