Stress pulses emitted during fracture in tension

This paper is concerned with the stress pulses which are emitted during the tensile fracture of glass rods of rectangular cross-section. Both a longitudinal and a flexural pulse were observed. The experimentally recorded pulse shapes are found to be in close agreement with those predicted by using a theoretical model proposed by Phillips and Kolsky. It is shown that the deviations noted in the earlier work with circular glass rods are due, primarily, to the effect of crack bifurcation and not to the geometry of the cross-section. Further, the phenomenon of crack bifunction is found to depend upon the magnitude of the applied stress required to initiate fracture, and to be essentially independent of the section geometry.