A fracture criterion for high-strength steel cracked bars

In this paper a fracture criterion is proposed for cracked cylindrical samples of high-strength prestressing steels of different yield strength. The surface crack is assumed to be semi-elliptical, a geometry very adequate to model sharp defects produced by any subcritical mechanism of cracking: mechanical fatigue, stress-corrosion cracking, hydrogen embrittlement or corrosion fatigue. Two fracture criteria with different meanings are considered: a global (energetic) criterion based on the energy release rate G, and a local (stress) criterion based on the stress intensity factor K-1. The advantages and disadvantages of both criteria for engineering design are discussed in this paper on the basis of many experimental results of fracture tests on cracked wires of high-strength prestressing steels of different yield strength and with different degrees of strength anisotropy.