A review of Finite Fracture Mechanics: crack initiation at singular and non-singular stress raisers

Crack initiation in brittle materials is not covered by classical fracture mechanics that deals only with the growth of pre-existing cracks. In order to overcome this deficiency, the Finite Fracture Mechanics concept assumes the instantaneous formation of cracks of finite size at initiation. Within this framework, a coupled criterion was proposed at the beginning of the 2000's requiring two necessary conditions to be fulfilled simultaneously. The first one compares the tensile stress to the tensile strength, while the other uses an energy balance and the material toughness. The present analysis is restricted to the 2D case, and, through a wide list of references, it is shown that this criterion gives predictions in agreement with experiments in various cases of stress concentration, which can be classified in two categories: the singularities, i.e. indefinitely growing stresses at a point, and the non-singular stress raisers. It is applied to different materials and structures: notched specimens, laminates, adhesive joints or embedded inclusions. Of course, a lot of work remains to do in these domains but also in domains that are almost not explored such as fatigue loadings and dynamic loadings as well as a sound 3D extension. Some ideas in these directions are issued before concluding that FFM and the coupled criterion have filled a gap in fracture mechanics.