The dependence of the strength of zinc sulphide on temperature and environment

The dependence of the strength of zinc sulphide on temperature, environment, surface finish and specimen size has been assessed. Room-temperature fracture stresses were determined using a bursting disc geometry for a number of different surface finishes and for two different sample sizes. High and low-temperature fracture stresses in a dry nitrogen atmosphere were obtained from experiments using the Brazilian test geometry and showed that the average strength of the material remained above or equal to the room-temperature value within the range –70 to +600 °C. The Brazilian test is an indirect tensile technique which is attractive for its experimental simplicity but gives fracture stress values which are consistently below those obtained by direct tensile techniques. The data from this test were therefore compared at room temperature to results obtained from the bursting disc test on samples which had been prepared using the same techniques. The possibility of delayed failure through environmentally enhanced slow crack growth was evaluated using the double-torsion technique which revealed slow crack growth below the critical stress intensity factor.