Abstract

GONZALEZ, Leonardo. Philosophy of fracture mechanics: part one, LEFM. uct [online]. 2014, vol.18, n.72, pp.119-140. ISSN 1316-4821.

Relatively, fracture mechanics is a new science and it can be considered that begins during the world war second, after a great deal of battleship fractured, even at dock, which put into danger the successful of landing operations during D-day, June 16 1944, at Normandy beaches (France). Fracture mechanics is the science which studies the behavior of a solid when a crack is present. In general, fracture mechanics is classified as Lineal Elastic Fracture Mechanics (LEFM) and Elasto-Plastic Fracture Mechanics (EPFM) or non-lineal fracture mechanics. In this part a novel model of seeing a crack and a Griffith’s equation correction factor has been developed, which let us to give a new interpretation of brittle fracture and Paris equation based in curvature radius at the crack tip. This point of view opens new fields of researching in fracture mechanics.

Keywords : Fracture mechanics; Crack; Griffith’s equation; Correction factor; Elliptical crack; Lineal Elastic Fracture Mechanics (LEFM); Paris’ equation.