Numerically Based Compliance Calibration for Steel Frame Assisted Tension Specimen

Recently, a new procedure has been proposed for testing the toughness of thin materials. The test procedure consists of glueing a metal frame onto each specimen face and applying load to the metal frame. This procedure is designed to avoid a Brinel effect on the specimen. Since the characterization of the material toughness requires a compliance function, a finite element calculation is performed in order to evaluate the influence of various material parameters. The deviation of the compliance with the Young’s moduli of the frame and tested materials, and also with the shear modulus, G, is studied. The resulting relationships are used to obtain a definition of the compliance function which takes into account the notch length and a stiffness representative of the tested materials and the glued frame. Comparison between calculated compliances and experimental data exhibits a good agreement.