Investigation on the Applicability of Several Fracture Criteria to the Mixed Mode Brittle Fractures

Mixed mode brittle fractures are very common failure behavior for cracked brittle materials under loading, and therefore, the prediction of the mixed mode brittle fractures is significant. In this paper, the authors attempt to make a detailed discussion on the applicability of several widely accepted fracture criteria to some brittle materials. By employing these criteria, several groups of experimental results of mixed mode brittle fractures were analyzed, and the applicability of each fracture criterion to some tested materials was also examined. The results show that many of the widely applied fracture criteria can provide a good estimation for predominately mode I fractures, but none of them can well predict predominately mode II fractures. Finally, the reasons of the failed prediction by these criteria were investigated, and several significant conclusions were presented.