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Title: Mechanism of mechanical fatigue of fused silica: Progress report, January 1, 1986-November 30, 1986

Technical Report ·
OSTI ID:7224765

The mechanical strength of glass is strongly influenced by crack geometry. A different fatigue mechanism has to be invoked depending upon whether the crack tip is sharp or blunt; a sharp tip crack can simply propagate, but a blunt tip crack has to be sharpened before it can propagate. It was shown that the crack tip of glass becomes blunt upon annealing. Similarly, the formation if a blunt crack was demonstrated earlier for glass specimens treated in hot water. Next, effects of the crack tip blunting on both dynamic fatigue and static fatigue were investigated in various liquids. It was found that fatigue of specimens with sharp cracks can be explained by the slow crack growth model satisfactorily, but fatigue of specimens with blunt cracks involves the initiation of a sharp crack in addition to the crack propagation. In static fatigue this crack initiation was found to require a far longer time than the crack propagation does. Furthermore, it was found that sharp crack initiation from a blunt tip under subcritical stress is possible only in water and not in non-aqueous liquids. Microhardness of glass in various liquids was investigated, and it was discovered that water enters SiO/sub 2/ glass during indentation while non-aqueous liquids do not.

Research Organization:
Rensselaer Polytechnic Inst., Troy, NY (USA). Dept. of Materials Engineering
DOE Contract Number:
FG02-85ER45217
OSTI ID:
7224765
Report Number(s):
DOE/ER/45217-2; ON: DE87003794
Resource Relation:
Other Information: Portions of this document are illegible in microfiche products
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English