Abstract
Crack curving, combined eventually with crack branching, phenomena in thin centrally-cracked plexiglas plates under tensile, high dynamic loadings were described. Affinities between crack curving and crack branching were studied at high-loading speeds, where crack curving is intimately related with crack branching. The large scattering and deviations between the values of the branching angles derived from the tests and those obtained by applying the classical macroscopic fracture criteria suggest a modification of these criteria to appropriately describe crack curving and branching phenomena. Such a modification of the fracture creteria should give better results especially when they could be applied to small-angle star-shaped geometries of two cracks emerging from the main crack. In such geometries the two cracks are either repelling each other, when their tips are closely spaced, or they are mutually attracted, when their tips are at larger distances. Hence, the branching angle must be at the equilibrium point between repelling and attracting forces of the two neighbouring crack tips. This model yields a value of the branching angle which is equal to the half value predicted by current fracture criteria applied in their initial form. Extensive experimental evidence agrees in general with these results.
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