Modelling of Edge Cracking and Flaking of Brittle Plates and Wedges

摘要

This report reviews some of the results of recent experimental, analytical, andcomputational studies of brittle edge cracking and flake formation. The modelling work concentrates on analyses of an edge crack on a plate and on a wedge top. The wedge geometry is interesting as it has been observed during laboratory experiments that ice failing in a brittle manner will develop into the shape of a wedge and that the top of this wedge will have a characteristic angle which was not a function of the test set-up but a product of the flaking process. The flake formation and crack growth are further studied analytically by using the beam approach in the crack theory. (Copyright (c) 1997 by Helsinki University of Technology.)