Indentation fatigue testing of soda-lime silicate glass

Dynamic, cyclic and static fatigue testing was performed on soda lime silic ate glass using indentation strength measurements. Using the conventional a nalysis, the cyclic and static fatigue data were inconsistent with the rema ining data for the case when the indentations were annealed prior to testin g. Using an analysis that included the measured variations in the fracture mechanics geometric parameters, all three data sets were consistent. Using a numerical analysis, the lifetime for materials in the static and cyclic f atigue tests was shown to be sensitive to variations in the stress intensit y factor at short crack lengths. It is therefore very important to understa nd any crack size dependence of the fracture mechanics parameters in this c rack size region for accurate lifetime predictions. (C) 1999 Kluwer Academi c Publishers.