Designing Brittle Fracture Specimens to Investigate Environmentally Assisted Crack Growth

Subcritical crack growth can occur in a glass when the stress intensity factor is less than the fracture toughness if water molecules are present. A novel bi-material beam specimen is proposed to investigate environmentally assisted crack growth (EACG). Two materials with different coefficients of thermal expansion are diffusion bonded at high temperature and cooled to the room temperature which introduces residual stress in the beam. A Finite element (FE) model is developed and initially validated with an analytical model. Steady-state crack (SSC) depth at which mode II stress intensity factor (KII) is zero and the corresponding mode I stress intensity factor (KI) value are obtained for different material pairs and thickness ratios of the top and bottom materials using the FE model. Crack propagation path is also predicted. We finally modify the geometry of the specimen to generate non-constant KI values as the crack propagates.