Fracture of Brittle Microbeams

The random polycrystalline microstructure of microbeams necessitates a reexamination of the crack driving force G stemming from the Griffith fracture criterion. It is found that, in the case of dead-load conditions, G computed by straightforward averaging of the spatially random elastic modulus E is lower than that obtained by correct ensemble averaging of the stored elastic energy. This result holds for both Euler-Bernoulli and Timoshenko models of micro-beams. However, under fixed-grip conditions G is to be computed by a direct ensemble averaging of E. It turns out that these two cases provide bounds on G under mixed loading. Furthermore, crack stability is shown to involve a stochastic competition between potential and surface energies, whose weak randomness leads to a relatively stronger randomness of the critical crack length.