The effect of ductile tearing on cleavage fracture probability in fracture toughness testing

Fracture toughness testing in the transition region often causes ductile tearing to precede cleavage fracture. The effect of ductile tearing on the fracture probability has in recent years become a subject of great interest. Brückner and Munz have developed a Weibull statistics based model to describe this effect. In this paper a similar model, based on the WST-model, is derived. The model is applied to several different sets of brittle fracture data. The differences between the present model and the B & M model is discussed. Finally the effect of loss of constraint on the models is noted.