A technique of sample preparation is described for the study of the ductile fracture which occurs in metals containing failure initiating voids or inclusions. For the measurements discussed, commercial grade Ti--6 percent Al--4 percent V was machined into the form of right circular cylinders, each about 2 cm in dia and 3 cm long. The specimen was then prepared by taking a pair of these cylinders and diffusion bonding their end faces together to form one cylinder 6 cm long. Prior to bonding, the surfaces to be mated were machined in such a way then when mated, the desired shape, location, and number of defects would result arrayed on the bond plane. The results of the tensile tests show that of the three parameters measured, (yield stress, tensile strength, and ductility) only the ductility (reduction of area) exhibited a sufficiently significant variation over the samples tested to be a meaningful variable. The reason for the small change observed in ultimate strength with increasing volume fraction of defects is thought to be as follows: The metal near an array of voids may be compared with the necked portion of a tensile bar of ductile material. For this latter problem, Bridgman (Studiesmore » in Large Plastic Flow and Fracture, McGraw-Hill, New York, 1952) has shown that large triaxial stresses are induced in the necked region of a deformed bar. While the analogy is not exact, in many respects the region near a bond line containing voids is like the necked tensile bar. The bond-line voids may induce local triaxial stresses of the same type as those found for a cylindrically symmetric tensile bar, though the mathematical form and magnitude will be different. Consequently, while fracture originated at or near the bond-line voids at a strain below bulk-metal failure strain, the apparent failure stress is not markedly reduced even for significant volume fractions on bond-line voids.« less