Tensile fracture analysis of V-notches with end holes by means of the local energy

This paper deals with investigating brittle fracture in V-notches with end holes under mode I loading. Thirty-six fracture test results, reported most recently in the literature on a new notched disk-type specimen, namely the Brazilian disk containing central VO-shaped notch made of polymethyl-metacrylate, were theoretically predicted by means of the well-known brittle fracture criterion, namely the strain energy density over a critical control volume which embraces the notch edge. A very good agreement was shown to exist between the experimental and theoretical results.