The Distribution of the Stress Intensity Factor Along the Front of the Growing Crack in an Optical Glass Fiber

Abstract

The stress intensity factor K1 along the front edge of a growing small crack in a silica optical fiber was evaluated by 3-D boundary element analysis based on the crack geometry observed during the delayed fracture test. The variation of K1 was shown to be little along the front of the growing crack. The crack velocity in the direction normal to the crack front was able to be expressed as a power function of K1 at each position on the crack front. The crack velocity was also shown to be larger at a position closer to the fiber surface for each value of K1 .