Experimental Study of Fracture of Glass:I, The Fracture Process

Abstract

A concept of fracture is developed from experimental data. Fractures are found to originate at flaws or cracks of finite size, most of which are at the surface. The mechanism is one of crack propagation which begins when the local stress at the crack exceeds a minimum value. The rate of propagation increases with crack growth until a critical stress is reached at the crack tip which coincides with a limiting crack velocity. This limiting condition is identified with the boundary of the mirror surface of the fracture. From calculations to be presented in Part 11, the critical stress is estimated to be several million pounds per square inch.