Quantitative Fracture Surface Analysis

Fracture Surface Markings (FSM) can be used to draw quantitative conclusions about a fracture event because a passing fracture front leaves a permanent record of its history in the form of topographic markings. The FSM can be used to locate the failure origin and determine how the catastrophic crack developed under the influence of the applied and transient stress fields. The FSM also show how the microstructure and processing defects in the material influenced the catastrophic failure event.