Subcritical crack-growth and lifetime behavior of glass and SiG under static load

Crack initiation and subcritical crack growth in glass sheet and SiC bar specimen under static loading were investigated to study the failure process. It has been demonstrated that the lifetime process of brittle materials involves three possible forms of crack growth: subcritical crack growth, partly subcritical crack growth and instantaneous fracture without subcritical crack growth. Curves of upsilon -K obtained in step-by-step static fatigue tests and in constant loading rate tests showed different trends for borosilicate glass sheet. alpha -SiC that is generally considered immune to mechanical fatigue effect and environmental attack was also tested under static loading and the lifetime was measured. The results showed that the threshold load to damage effect was over 80% of the initial strength for the SiC.