Dynamic crack curving and branching under biaxial loading

A 16-spark-gap camera was used to record the dynamic photoelastic patterns of ten centrally cracked, Homalite-100 specimens which fractured under ten initial biaxial-stress ratios ranging from 3.7 to 0, some of which do not exist in normal fracture specimens. The dynamic photoelastic patterns of curved cracks were used to verify the previously developed dynamic-crack-curving criterion. Cracks which immediately curved upon propagation in three specimens under abnormally high inital biaxial loading were used to verify the static counterpart of the dynamic-crack-curving criterion under these extreme loading conditions. A previously developed dynamic-crack-branching criterion was also verified by four dynamic photoelastic results involving cracks which eventually branched under the lower initial biaxial loading.