On influence of non-singular stress states on brittle fracture

In the case of sufficiently brittle material the use of stress intensity factor as a fracture parameter alone is well justified within the Linear-Elastic Fracture Mechanics. This is because the singular stress field associated with the stress intensity factor is dominant near the crack tip. However, there are numerous experimental evidences that the critical stress intensity factor to cause fracture initiation (or fracture toughness) can be affected by the specimen geometry as well as loading conditions. To address this issue a number of two-parameter criteria have been proposed in the past, which often utilise non-singular terms of the classical asymptotic expansion of the stress field near the crack tip. Therefore, there is a problem of the selection of an appropriate parameter in addition to the stress intensity factor, which could account for various effects induced by the specimen geometry and loading on initiation of brittle fracture. This short paper demonstrates that brittle fracture conditions can be successfully predicted with various two-parameter criteria, and there are no clear advantages in the use of T-stress as the additional parameter in fracture criterion, in comparison with the next non-singular term, A1, of the asymptotic expansion.David Gardeazabal, Zhuang He and Andrei Kotouso