Static Fatigue Crack Propagation Behavior of Glass in Vacuum

Abstract

The static fatigue fracture behavior of glass in vacuum was investigated on the basis of a stochastic damage model. Our theoretical results were in good agreement with the experimental ones for 4 glasses and it was shown that the static fatigue crack velocity of glass was proportional to some power of the stress intensity factor. On these theoretical bases, it was concluded that subcritical crack growth was the result of a thermally activated growth process which depended on the crack-tip stress in glass.