Abstract
This discussion relates to brittle crack growth in the absence of an environmentally induced strength degradation ahead of the crack or to diffusion or time dependent flow induced cavitation at the crack tip region. Subcritical crack growth at stresses below the Griffith value violates the second law of thermodynamics, but considerable thermally activated crack growth is possible at the Griffith stress level in cases of lattice trapping of a crack where the change of surface free energy is not a smooth function of the increasing crack length. 9 refs.
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