Investigation of failure criteria for a sharp notch

In this study, a method of evaluating the static strength of a V-shaped notch based on the singular stress field at the notch tip is studied. The singular stress fields is defined by two parameters, KI,λ1 and KII,λ2 , which correspond to the intensities of symmetric stress field and the skew-symmetric field, respectively. Four kinds of fracture criteria are considered; two of them are based on the tensile strength σB and the other two are based on the fracture toughness KIC. The usefulness of the criteria is investigated through the experimental results carried out on plane specimens of acrylic resin having a sharp notch for various notch configurations such as the opening angle, the inclined angle and the notch depth. It is shown that the criteria using stress intensity factor and the energy release rate not sensitive to the length of the virtual crack ε