Pre-Cracking techniques of polymeric materials: an overview

In fracture toughness tests, a number of notched specimens with identical artificial pre-cracks are essential to obtain accurate fracture parameters. The test results are critically depending on the initiation stage quality. Any slight variance in pre-cracks front shape, length and orientation could significantly affects the test results; therefore, producing identical pre-cracks is a critical issue to obtain accurate results. The pre-cracking technique should be selected carefully to fulfil controllably and repeatability requirements of the standard pre-cracks for a certain material while preserving the induced residual stresses at the crack tip at a minimal value. The notching and pre-cracking standards for metallic material have been well specified in ASTM E399. However, the case is more cumbersome for polymeric materials due their viscoelastic nature. ASTM D5045, ISO 13586:2000 and ASTM D6068 specified different procedures to prepare a sharp pre-crack for polymeric materials. Many pre-cracking techniques have been proposed in literature. The present work introduces an overview of the pre-cracking techniques for polymeric materials.