A SIMPLIFIED APPROACH FOR CERAMIC FRACTURE-TOUGHNESS EVALUATION BY INDENTATION

The application of the Vickers indentation test for fracture toughness determination in brittle materials has become widespread because of t he simplicity of the test. The undoubted advantages of this technique are counterbalanced by the multitude of complex models and related equ ations reported in the literature. In this paper, a simplified and mor e realistic approach for estimating fracture toughness in brittle mate rials is presented. The proposed model has been applied to soda-lime g lass evidencing substantial agreement with other conventional standard methods.