APLICACIÓN DE LA MECÁNICA DE LA FRACTURA POST-CEDENCIA A POLÍMEROS

Abstract

The Essential Work of Fracture (EWF) technique has been used for the ductile materials characterization, where yielding phenomenon occurs before crack propagation. The EWF method characterizes the post-yielding fracture, determining two parameters: the specific essential work of fracture, we related with the real fracture process area, and the specific non-essential work of fracture, wp  that corresponds with the work done in the outer region of the crack tip. The EWF technique has been successfully employed especially with polymers, allowing the study of the influence of many variables on the fracture behavior, unavailable using other techniques such as J integral. In this work, the fundamentals of the technique and examples of application are reviewed, presenting a brief summary of the most relevant contributions of our group to the EWF method.