Fracture characteristics of laboratory-tested soda lime glass specimens

Static testing of glass plates has shown a pronounced distribution in the plate strength. The origin of fracture location along the plate span, the corresponding critical tensile stress, and the size of the critical flaw at the origin of fracture are failure characteristics of major importance. This paper provides data and insight into parameters influencing these failure characteristics through laboratory testing and analysis of soda lime glass, to find a rationale behind the observed disorder of their magnitudes and distributions. A recent stochastic model for glass plate analysis is implemented to predict the magnitudes and distributions of the failure characteristics, and to compare these with laboratory tests. The model provides good predictions of the distributions and magnitudes of the failure characteristics and sheds light on glass plate behaviour. It demonstrates that there are mechanics-based explanations to the wide scatter of experimental results and to the apparent disorder in glass behaviour.