FRACTAL MICROSTRUCTURE OF FRACTURE SURFACES AND FRACTURE ENERGY OF METALS

Using a fractal model, we give a new interpretation of the reversed si gmoidal curves of fracture surface profile length obtained in some exp eriments. It is pointed out that a single parameter (fractal dimension D) is not sufficient to characterize a fractal curve completely. It i s shown that the initiator length L-0 is also important to characteriz e a fractal curve. We have derived a formula which correlate the fract ure energy with the fractal parameters of the fracture surfaces and an alyzed some experimental data.