1957/09/01 by G. R. Irwin · 5,461 citations
Engineering · Materials Science · #Brittle fracture #Brittleness #Composite material #Crack closure #Crack growth resistance curve #Crack tip opening displacement #Engineering #Fatigue and fracture mechanics #Finite element method #Fracture (geology) #Fracture mechanics #Geology #High-Velocity Impact and Material Behavior #Materials science #Mechanics #Physics #Plane stress #Stress (linguistics) #Stress concentration #Stress field #Stress intensity factor #Structural engineering #Traverse #Ultrasonics and Acoustic Wave Propagation
paper · doi:10.1115/1.4011547
published in Journal of Applied Mechanics 24(3), 361-364 (ASM International)
openalex publication_date 1957/09/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
Abstract A substantial fraction of the mysteries associated with crack extension might be eliminated if the description of fracture experiments could include some reasonable estimate of the stress conditions near the leading edge of a crack particularly at points of onset of rapid fracture and at points of fracture arrest. It is pointed out that for somewhat brittle tensile fractures in situations such that a generalized plane-stress or a plane-strain analysis is appropriate, the influence of the test configuration, loads, and crack length upon the stresses near an end of the crack may be expressed in terms of two parameters. One of these is an adjustable uniform stress parallel to the direction of a crack extension. It is shown that the other parameter, called the stress-intensity factor, is proportional to the square root of the force tending to cause crack extension. Both factors have a clear interpretation and field of usefulness in investigations of brittle-fracture mechanics.