The effect of local residual stress on the fractal dimension of silicate glasses

Local residual stress caused by impacts, machining and indentation results in a decrease in strength in most materials that fail in a brittle manner. The ratio of the critical crack size, c, and the fracture mirror size, r, also is affected by the existence of local residual stress. The global fracture toughness of non-R curve materials is not affected by the local residual stress. The fractal dimension of the fracture surface as characterized by the fractal dimensional increment, D*, is directly related to the square of the fracture toughness. This paper addresses the question of the effect of the local residual stress on the fractal dimension of the fracture surface. We derive a relationship between the fractal dimensional increment and the c/r ratio for materials fractured with and without local residual stress. We then compare the prediction with two cases of experimental results. We show the fractal dimension remains constant with the change in the c/r ratio for local residual stress conditions.