Is the edge crack the most dangerous V-notch?

The determination of the failure load for brittle or quasi-brittle specimenscontaining a re-entrant corner has been faced by several Authors, whoseapproaches are available in the Scientific Literature. However, up to now, littleattention has been paid to the presence of a minimum, i.e. an angle at which thecritical load attains its minimum value. Even if the minimum was detected inseveral experiments, it was not highlighted or it was considered as a mereconsequence of the scattering of experimental data. Restricting the analysis to aV-notched infinite slab under a remote tensile load, the problem is fullyinvestigated in this paper. It is shown that a minimum, although imperceptible, ispresent. It means that the edge crack is not the most dangerous configuration,although the notch opening angle providing the minimum failure load tends tovanish for large notch depths as well as for very brittle materials.

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