Fracture mechanics of cellular glass

Abstract

Cellular glasses are prime candidate materials for the structural substrate of mirrored glass for solar concentrator reflecting panels. These materials are brittle, however, and susceptible to mechanical failure from slow crack growth caused by a stress corrosion mechanism. The results are detailed of one part of a program established to develop improved cellular glasses and to characterize the behavior of these and commercially available materials. Commercial and developmental cellular glasses were tested and analyzed using standard testing techniques and models developed from linear fracture mechanics. Two models describing the fracture behavior of these materials are developed. Slow crack growth behavior in cellular glass was found to be more complex than that encountered in dense glasses or ceramics. The crack velocity was found to be strongly dependent upon water vapor transport to the tip of the moving crack. The existence of a static fatigue limit was not conclusively established, however, it is speculated that slow crack growth behavior in Region I may be slower, by orders of magnitude, than that found in dense glasses.