Effect of Poisson's Ratio on Crack Propagation and Arrest in the Double-Cantilever-Beam Specimen

A recently proposed finite difference scheme for treating fast propagation and arrest in the double-cantilever-beam (DCB) specimen, which has so far yielded satisfactory results when compared with experimental measurements related to steel and epoxy resin, is here applied to a variety of materials, distinguished in the analysis by their Poisson's ratio only. It is shown that higher Poisson's ratios imply higher ratios between the initiating stress intensity factor and the dynamic material toughness when the same amount of crack growth is considered. The relation between the crack length at arrest and the crack speed, with the latter given with respect to the shear wave velocity, was found to be essentially independent of changes in the material when geometrically similar DCB configurations are considered.