Differentiation of crack branching types in fractured glass

The influence of different physical factors on the fracture branching phenomenon was investigated on a fractured brittle (glass) bottle. A fully branched fracture tree consisting of 144 initiation sites was induced. Branching sites were concentrated in two zones: close to the fracture origin and further away from it along the bottle axis, which was shown to be related to reflection of transverse acoustic waves from the bottle's shoulder. Two types of branching formed, complete full branches (FB), and attempted branching (AB) when one branch was shorter than 5 mm. Branching in the first zone was shown to be regulated by both the distribution of flaw lengths and the distances from each FB to its nearest fracture neighbor. Fracture spacing was found to be proportional to the stress at the propagating fracture tips.