Experimental Investigation of the Effect of Specimen Size on Compression Splitting Method by Method of Caustics

Abstract

　　　In this paper, the effect of specimen size on compression splitting tests is investigated experimentally by the caustics method. Specifically, we investigated the stress intensity factor and compression load ratio K_I/P by varying the specimen width d from 10 to 60 mm, height h from 20 to 100 mm, notch length a from 4 to 36 mm, thickness t from 3 to 10 mm, and platen width w from 3 to 12 mm, respectively. The experimental K_I /P values are shown to approximately coincide with values calculated using the compression splitting method for a notch lengths of 15 and 20 mm, a thickness ranging from 6 mm to 10 mm, a width of 15 mm, a height ranging from 20 mm to 100 mm, and a platen width ranging from 6 mm to 12 mm, within the accuracy of experimental conditions of the present study.