Experiment and simulation of a crack growing by material dissolution

Crack growth and crack path under a fracture mechanical experiment in polycarbonate is studied. The material, a polycarbonate, is photo elastic witch makes it possible to do an optical stress field analysis. The crack path and crack branching is also predicted by an adaptive finite element analysis.The crack growth is a result of stress induced, chemically activated material dissolution that completely determines the geometry of the specimen, including the shape and length of the crack. In this case, the mechanisms and processes leading to crack growth are assumed to be incorporated in a general material dissolution process. As a consequence of this assumption there is no need for a crack criterion or crack path hypothesis. The lack of crack path criterion imposes an arbitrary length scale where the crack width scales with the square of the applied load but the crack growth rate is independent of the load. Numerical calculations suggest that the crack is capable of branching and that the branches will continue to grow at the same rate as the original crack. The numerical results are verified by the photo elastic experiments and a reasonable agreement is established