Experimental and theoretical investigation of brittle fracture in key-hole notches under mixed mode I/II loading

The Brazilian disk specimen weakened by a central dumbbell-shaped slit with two key-shaped ends and made of PMMA is employed to perform mixed mode I/II brittle fracture experiments on key-hole notches for various notch lengths and radii and, also, different mode mixity ratios. The load-carrying capacity of the specimen resulting from the test machine at the onset of sudden fracture is theoretically predicted by means of a well-known brittle fracture criterion, namely the local strain energy density criterion. A good agreement is found to exist between the theoretical and the experimental results.