A preliminary study on the potentialities of the Circular Semi-Ring test

Abstract The potentialities of the Circular Semi-Ring test, as an alternative method for the indirect determination of the tensile strength of brittle materials, are discussed. The study is motivated by the fact that the outcomes of the familiar Brazilian-disc test are quite often criticized as providing erroneous results for the tensile strength, especially in case the origin of the fatal crack leading to the specimen’s fracture is not located at the disc’s center. The study described here focuses on the analytic determination of the displacement field developed in a circular semi-ring, assuming that it is simultaneously subjected to both compression forces and bending moments. The analysis is implemented by taking advantage of the complex potentials technique as it was formulated by Muskhelishvili. The solution derived is then validated taking advantage of the data for the respective displacement field obtained experimentally with the aid of the Digital Image Correlation technique.