Failure prediction of the thermal fatigue resistance of a glass

The thermal fatigue behaviour of circular rods of soda-lime-silica glass subjected to a water quench was predicted from data for the rate of slow crack growth as a function of stress intensity factor, the pertinent physical properties, the initial crack depth as well as the heat transfer environment. A numerical integration technique was developed in order to calculate the total extent of slow crack growth for each cycle over the total duration of the transient thermal stress and temperature, as well as the total number of cycles required for catastrophic failure to occur. Good agreement between the predicted and experimental data was found.