Recent Developments in Brittle and Quasi-Brittle Failure Assessment of Graphite by Means of SED

Brittle fracture of polycrystalline graphite under tension, in-plane shear and torsion loading is studied experimentally and theoretically using prismatic and axisymmetric specimens weakened by sharp and rounded-tip V-notches. The main purpose is twofold. First, to provide a new set of experimental data from notched samples made of isostatic polycrystalline graphite with different values of notch opening angles and root radii, which should be useful to engineers engaged with static strength analysis of graphite components. At the best of authors' knowledge, data from notch specimens are very scarce in the literature for this material. Second, to apply a fracture criterion based on the strain energy density (SED) averaged over a well-defined control volume surrounding the notch tip, extending what was made by the present authors for in-plane tension-shear loading conditions in notched specimens made of other materials. Good agreement is found between the experimental data related to the critical loads to failure and the theoretical assessments based on the constancy of the mean SED over the material-dependent control volume. © (2014) Trans Tech Publications.