Abstract
The paper investigates the phenomenon of time-independent crack growth in a non-phase-transforming ceramic type material, for the idealised situation where the ligament bridging region behind a propagating crack tip is small compared with the initial crack size. Particular attention is focussed on the determination of the fully developed bridging zone size R m , and the maximum toughness K m attainable as a consequence of crack growth. Comparison is made with a recent study by Majumdar et al. who assume that the contribution to the displacement at the initial crack tip due to the restraining ligaments is controlled by a reduced modulus for the bridging material, and not the bulk modulus of the matrix material as assumed in the present paper. The predicted values of R m and K m are considerably larger if the bulk modulus is used.
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