Brittle failure of blunt V-shaped notch under mode I loading

In the previous paper of the authors (Chen and Fan, 2019), the fracture evaluation of the U-shaped notches, which refer specifically to the V-shaped notches with the notch opening angle γ=0, has been investigated in details. In the present study, the evaluation technique of fracture loads for blunt V-shaped notches is investigated by using the mean stress criterion and the Filippi's stress equation. It is found that the conclusions obtained in the previous study for the U-shaped notches with γ=0 can also apply to the V-shaped notches with γ≠0. Under certain geometric conditions the fracture loads of blunt V-shaped notches can be evaluated not only by the generalized notch stress intensity factor K_IC ^V,R, but also by the maximum stress at the notch root σ_maxC. Both the values of K_IC ^V,R/K_IC and σ_maxC/σ_C can be expressed by a function of ρ/(K_IC/σ_C)². The geometric conditions can be estimated from the condition that the mean stress over the control region in the actual specimens can be approximately evaluated by Filippi's stress equation.