An Experimental Investigation of Fracture Criteria for Combined Extension and Bending

Experiments were performed on cracked plates loaded in combined extension and approximately cylindrical bending. A fracture criterion was developed from the Sih-Hartranft bending theory, which, when modified to account for precatastrophic crack extension, agreed well with the experiments in regions where the crack remained open at fracture and appeared to provide a lower bound in the region where crack closure occurred.