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Experimental and Numerical Study on the

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Rock Mech Rock Eng
DOI 10.1007/s00603-015-0855-2
ORIGINAL PAPER
Experimental and Numerical Study on the Cracked Chevron
Notched Semi-Circular Bend Method for Characterizing
the Mode I Fracture Toughness of Rocks
Ming-Dong Wei1 Feng Dai1 Nu-Wen Xu1 Jian-Feng Liu1 Yuan Xu1
Received: 24 April 2015 / Accepted: 19 September 2015
 Springer-Verlag Wien 2015
Abstract The cracked chevron notched semi-circular
bending (CCNSCB) method for measuring the mode I
fracture toughness of rocks combines the merits (e.g.,
avoidance of tedious pre-cracking of notch tips, ease of
sample preparation and loading accommodation) of both
methods suggested by the International Society for Rock
Mechanics, which are the cracked chevron notched
Brazilian disc (CCNBD) method and the notched semi-
circular bend (NSCB) method. However, the limited
availability of the critical dimensionless stress intensity
factor (SIF) values severely hinders the widespread usage
of the CCNSCB method. In this study, the critical SIFs are
determined for a wide range of CCNSCB specimen
geometries via three-dimensional finite element analysis. A
relatively large support span in the three point bending
configuration was considered because the fracture of the
CCNSCB specimen in that situation is finely restricted in
the notch ligament, which has been commonly assumed for
mode I fracture toughness measurements using chevron
notched rock specimens. Both CCNSCB and NSCB tests
were conducted to measure the fracture toughness of two
different rock types; for each rock type, the two methods
produce similar toughness values. Given the reported
experimental results, the CCNSCB method can be reliable
for characterizing the mode I fracture toughness of rocks.
& Feng Dai
fengdai@scu.edu.cn
1 toughness tests are typically core-based and can be cate-
State Key Laboratory of Hydraulics and Mountain River
Engineering, College of Water Resources and Hydropower,
Sichuan University, Chengdu 610065, Sichuan, China
Keywords Fracture toughness  Stress intensity factor 
Semi-circular bend  Chevron notch  Finite element
analysis
1 Introduction
Rock fracture mechanics has been widely applied in many
engineering activities related to rock breakage or failure,
including rock mass slope stability assessment, rock dril-
ling, tunnel boring, prevention of rockbursts, the deep
burial of nuclear waste, hydraulic fracturing and oil
exploration (Anderson 2005). In rock fracture mechanics,
the most fundamental parameter is the rock fracture
toughness, which represents the ability of rocks to resist
crack initiation and propagation. Because rock materials
are weak in tension, the tension/opening mode (mode I)
fracture is encountered more frequently than either the in-
plane shear mode (mode II) or the tearing/out-of-plane
shear mode (mode III). Even if shearing or mixed-mode
failure occurs macroscopically, the opening mode can still
be observed at the micro scale. Correspondingly, the mode
I fracture toughness (KIC) is most commonly studied in
rock fracture mechanics. In particular, developing conve-
nient testing specimens and improving the accuracy of KIC
values in the laboratory measurements have attracted sig-
nificant interests in the rock fracture mechanics
community.
Since the 1960s, various testing methods with distinct
specimen geometries have been developed for mode I rock
fracture toughness measurements (Dai et al. 2015a). For
convenient sample fabrications, rock specimens in fracture
gorized into three groups based on their sampling shapes:
123

cylindrical configurations (group I), disc configurations
(group II) and half-disc configurations (group III).
Group I includes the straight edge cracked round bar
bend (SECRBB) method (Ouchterlony 1982) and the two
methods suggested by the International Society for Rock
Mechanics (ISRM) (Ouchterlony 1988): chevron bending
(CB) and short rod (SR). In these methods, specimens
feature a large length-to-diameter ratio, so that long rock
cores composed of high rock quality are required in each
specimen (Cui et al. 2010). Additionally, from a practical
perspective, the complexity of the equipment setup and the
requirements of the testing apparatus (Fowell and Chen
1990; Lim et al. 1994a; Chang et al. 2002) discourage the
widespread adoption of these methods in general and the
SR method in particular, because directly applying a tensile
load perpendicular to the initial notched plane is particu-
larly difficult during the fracture toughness measurements
of rocks.
A myriad of methods belong to group II, including the
Brazilian disc (BD) method (Guo et al. 1993), the cracked
straight through Brazilian disc (CSTBD) method (Awaji
and Sato 1978; Atkinson et al. 1982; Aliha et al. 2010,
2012a, b), the double edge cracked Brazilian disc (DECBD)
method (Chen et al. 2001), the flattened Brazilian disc
(FBD) method (Wang and Xing 1999; Keles and Tutluoglu
2011), the hollow centre cracked disc (HCCD) method
(Amrollahi et al. 2011), the holed-cracked flattened
Brazilian disc (HCFBD) method (Tang et al. 1996), the
holed-flattened Brazilian disc (HFBD) method (Yang et al.
1997), the modified ring (MR) method (Thiercelin and
Roegiers 1986; Thiercelin 1989; Tutluoglu and Keles
2011), radial cracked ring method (Shiryaev and Kotkis
1982; Chen et al. 2008), and the ISRM-suggested cracked
chevron notched Brazilian disc (CCNBD) method (Xu and
Fowell 1994; Fowell 1995; Wang et al. 2003; Iqbal and
Mohanty 2006, 2007; Dai et al. 2010a, 2015a). Among
these methods, the CCNBD method is most frequently used
due to its ease of sample preparation, simple testing pro-
cedure, low data scatter (Dwivedi et al. 2000; Nasseri et al.
2006), larger tolerance to specimen machining errors in the
samples used (Dwivedi et al. 2000), wide-ranging specimen
geometries, and low required amount of intact rock core
(Iqbal and Mohanty 2006), as well as the availability of pure
mode II or mixed-mode (mode I and mode II) fracture
studies (Fowell et al. 2006; Xu et al. 2015a).
Group III involves the ISRM-suggested notched semi-
circular bend (NSCB) method (Dai et al. 2010b; Zhou et al.
2012; Dai and Xia 2013; Kuruppu et al. 2014) and the
cracked chevron notched semi-circular bend (CCNSCB)
method (Kuruppu 1997; Chang et al. 2002; Dai et al. 2011;
Ayatollahi and Alborzi 2013; Wei et al. 2015). These half-
disc specimens are also complimentary due to their ease of
preparation and loading accommodation; they are
123
M.-D. Wei et al.
particularly favored in dynamic fracture tests due to their
smaller lengths compared to the samples used in the other
two groups. The dynamic force within the sample is more
easily balanced for a shorter sample, and thus, the classic
quasi-static data reduction method can be used in the split
Hopkinson pressure bar (SHPB) tests (Zhou et al. 2012; Xu
et al. 2015b). The availabilities and advantages of both the
CCNSCB and NSCB specimens in the dynamic SHPB tests
were confirmed by Dai et al. (2010b, 2011). Note that these
semi-circular bending (SCB) type methods are also suit-
able for mixed-mode fracture studies, with materials that
behave non-linearly and for testing sedimentary rocks by
notching the specimen along the principal directions of
material properties (Kuruppu and Chong 2012). Conse-
quently, the NSCB method has been widely used by
researchers and has recently been accepted as an ISRM-
suggested method for measuring both the static and
dynamic mode I fracture toughness of rocks (Zhou et al.
2012; Kuruppu et al. 2014).
The CCNSCB method was originally proposed by
Kuruppu (1997) and later extended to dynamic SHPB tests
by Dai et al. (2011). This method combines the superior
features of the CCNBD (Fowell 1995) and NSCB (Zhou
et al. 2012; Kuruppu et al. 2014) methods, and also over-
comes some weaknesses of the two ISRM-suggested
methods (Dai et al. 2015b). The CCNSCB specimen con-
figuration can be regarded as half CCNBD so that it
inherently removes the symmetrical crack propagation
assumption of the CCNBD method. This chevron notched
SCB specimen avoids the difficulty of pre-cracking or
fabricating a sharp crack in the NSCB method. Note that
for samples with a straight-through crack, sufficient crack
tip sharpness is required to accurately determine the frac-
turing initiation and the load at this stage, which is used in
fracture toughness computations (Suresh et al. 1987;
Bergmann and Vehoff 1994). In reality, pre-cracking is
tedious and particularly difficult to perform on hard rocks.
Fortunately, a novel chevron notch in CCNSCB can induce
self-precracking during testing, and thus lead to
stable crack propagation when the peak load is reached
(Chang et al. 2002). Although it has many inherent merits,
the CCNSCB method has not been as popular as the NSCB
method; the key reason is that only a limited amount of
data on the dimensionless stress intensity factor (SIF) of
CCNSCB specimens is available. A few researchers have
calculated the SIF values on selected CCNSCB sample
geometries; for example, Ayatollahi and Alborzi (2013)
calculated these values using a slice synthesis method
(SSM), using an empirical coefficient by comparing the
SSM results with those reported by Kuruppu (1998). From
a practical perspective, further studies are expected to
extend the reported dimensionless SIF values and make
them more convenient and reliable.
Experimental and Numerical Study on the Cracked Chevron Notched Semi-Circular Bend Method
In this study, both experimental and numerical studies are
conducted on the CCNSCB method for mode I rock fracture
toughness measurements. Finite element analysis with a sub-
modelling technique (Wang et al. 2003; Dai et al. 2011; Wei
et al. 2015) is used to calculate the dimensionless SIFs of
wide-ranging CCNSCB sample geometries. To evaluate the
accuracy of the measurement results produced by the
CCNSCB method, we conducted fracture toughness exper-
iments on the same rock material using the ISRM-suggested
NSCB method (Kuruppu et al. 2014). The remainder of this
paper is organized as follows. Section 2 introduces the
testing principle of the CCNSCB method. The minimum
(critical) dimensionless SIF values of the CCNSCB
geometries are then analyzed based on the straight-through
crack assumption (Ouchterlony 1982, 1988; Shetty et al.
1985; Fowell 1995; Chang et al. 2002; Amrollahi et al. 2011)
in Sect. 3, followed by detailed KIC measurements on two
different rock types using both CCNSCB and NSCB samples
in Sect. 4. A comprehensive discussion comparing the
studied CCNSCB method and the NSCB method is presented
in Sect. 5. Finally, Sect. 6 summarizes the entire study.
Fig. 1 a A schematic of the
CCNSCB specimen geometry
and b the valid geometric range
for the CCNSCB fracture
toughness tests
2 Brief Description of the CCNSCB Method
Geometric details of a CCNSCB specimen are schemati-
cally shown in Fig. 1a, where R and B are the radius and
thickness of the specimen, respectively; S is defined as the
half span of the two supporting rollers; RS is the radius of
the diamond saw blade used for machining the chevron
notch; a is the crack length; a0 and a1 are the initial and the
final crack lengths, respectively; b is the crack front width
and P is the imposed load during the test. Note that geo-
metric dimensions should be converted to dimensionless
parameters with respect to R as follows:
8
>
> a0 a0 =R
<
a1 a1 =R
1
>
> a B=R
: B
aS RS =R
Note that a CCNSCB specimen can be regarded as half of a
CCNBD specimen that is created with a diametrical cut; thus,
all of the geometric configurations and restrictions for the
CCNBD specimens (Fowell 1995) are applicable to the
123
 M.-D. Wei et al.

Fig. 2 A schematic of the

measurement principle of the
CCNSCB fracture test and the
assumed fracture initiation and
growth

CCNSCB specimens. As shown in Fig. 1b, the selected to the peak during the stable crack growth stage and then
specimen dimensions should satisfy the following restrictions: decreases during the unstable crack growth stage (Fig. 2d),
8 while the variation of Y* exhibits the opposite trend
>
> a1  0:4 Line 0
>
> (Fig. 2e). The fracture toughness is determined via Eq. 3
>
> a1  aB =2 Line 1
< using the P and Y* at the stable-unstable fracture transition
aB  1:04 Line 2
2 point, where P reaches its maximum (Pmax) and Y* reaches
>
> a 1  0:8 Line 3   
>
>
>
> a  1:1729  a1:6666 Line 4 its minimum Ymin .
: B 1
aB  0:44 Line 5
In the framework of linear elastic fracture mechanics,
3 Wide-Range SIF Calculation for CCNSCB
KIC of a CCNSCB specimen can be calculated using a
Specimens
formula similar to that of the CCNBD specimens (Fowell
et al. 2006): 
The critical dimensionless SIF Ymin is critical when mea-
Pmax  suring KIC and can be numerically determined. Note that
KIC p Ymin 3
B R the dimensionless SIFs of CCNSCB specimens are deter-
  mined by a0, a1 and aB, similar to that for the CCNBD
P
Y  KI = p 4 specimens, and also by the support span, similar to that for
B R
the NSCB specimens (Kuruppu et al. 2014). In the fol-
where KI is the mode I SIF, Pmax is the applied maximum 
lowing sections, Ymin for a wide range of CCNSCB spec-

load, and Ymin denotes the minimum (critical) value of the imen geometries with a suggested support span (Wei et al.
dimensionless SIF (Y*) that occurs as the crack grows, 2015) were calculated using three-dimensional finite ele-
which can be calculated via Eq. 4 using numerical methods ment analysis.
prior to testing.
Figure 2 shows the testing principle of the CCNSCB
method. The primary crack initiates from the tip of the 3.1 Influence of the Support Span on the Fracture
chevron notch and then grows along the centre of the notch
width h, as shown in Fig. 2ac, with a straight-through In the following dimensionless SIF calculations, the sup-
crack front (Ouchterlony 1982, 1988; Fowell 1995). The port span S/R was fixed at 0.8 for a wide range of specimen
crack growth in a chevron notched CCNSCB specimen can configurations. A large support span (e.g., S/R = 0.8) is
be divided into two stages: stable growth and unsta- favored for the CCNSCB tests because, as evaluated by
ble growth. During testing, the applied load P increases up Wei et al. (2015), the fracture route of the specimen under

123
Experimental and Numerical Study on the Cracked Chevron Notched Semi-Circular Bend Method
that circumstance is near the expected route that is assumed

in the determination of Ymin , where the crack grows within
the notch ligament (Fig. 2ac). Wei et al. (2015) also show
that real fractures diverge from the idealized situation to
different extents in CCNSCB specimens with different
loading spans. Furthermore, the primary crack propagation
is finely restricted in the chevron notch ligament for a
relatively large span between the support rollers (e.g., S/
R = 0.8). For the chevron notched specimens with stable
unstable fracture propagation, the primary crack is expec-
ted to grow along the notch ligament while being restricted
to its plane; therefore, S/R is set to 0.8 in the CCNSCB
tests. In addition, the loading scheme of the CCNSCB test
with a relatively large support span yields less frictional
forces at the contacting zones between the specimen and
the support rollers, and thus is favored in three point
bending type tests.
3.2 Wide-Range Calculation of the Critical
Dimensionless SIFs
  
To obtain accurate dimensionless critical SIF Ymin val-
ues, a sub-modelling technique in ANSYS software, also
known as the specified boundary displacement method or
the cut-boundary displacement method, was used to
achieve a fine mesh grid with singular elements (Barsoum
1977) around the crack tip. First, a generally meshed, full
model was analyzed; then, a sub-model with a refined mesh
was sliced from the full model to re-analyze the crack tip
zone. Note that the boundary condition of the sub-model
was prescribed by the displacement solution calculated
from the full model. Verifications and applications of this
sub-modelling technique in three-dimensional fracture
Fig. 3 The meshing scheme used in the dimensionless SIF calculation: a a quarter of the CCNSCB specimen and b the sub-model
mechanics have been documented by Wang et al. (2003)
and Dai et al. (2010a, 2011).
Due to symmetry, a quarter of the CCNSCB specimen
was built as the full model (Fig. 3a), which consisted of
34288 Solid92 elements (i.e., a 10-node tetrahedral struc-
tural solid) and 49645 nodes. Subsequently, a half cylinder
enclosing the straight crack front was cut from the full
model for sub-modelling and discretized with 1080 Solid95
elements (i.e., a 20-node brick shaped element) having
4895 nodes, as shown in Fig. 3b. Quarter point nodal ele-
ments (Barsoum 1977) were used to mesh the region
adjacent to the crack front to simulate the stress singularity
of r-1/2 near the crack tip, where r is the radius to the crack
tip. For the CCNSCB specimen with the same geometric
parameters as the standard CCNBD specimen configuration
(Fowell 1995), the mode I SIFs (KI) of the cracks at dif-
ferent lengths can be calculated, and the normalized SIFs
(Y*) (Eq. 4) and the corresponding dimensionless crack
lengths are shown in Fig. 4. With an increasing dimen-
sionless crack length (a), Y* first decreases and then
  
increases, and the minimum Ymin equals 5.618; the cor-
responding dimensionless crack length a, which is the
critical dimensionless crack length am, is equal to 0.479.
To cover the valid geometric range shown in Fig. 1b, a
series of geometric parameter values were considered: aB,
from 0.44 to 1.04; a1, from 0.4 to 0.8; and a0, from 0.1 to
0.45. Combining different values of the above three vari-

ables, Ymin can be calculated for a diverse range of
CCNSCB specimen geometries. Partial results are shown
in Tables 1, 2, 3, and 4.
Similar to the expression of the critical dimensionless

SIFs in the CCNBD method (Fowell 1995), Ymin of the
CCNSCB specimens can also be represented as:
123
 M.-D. Wei et al.

By curve-fitting, u and v can be determined and shown

in Table 5. For a given specimen dimension, u and v can be

found in Table 5, and Ymin can be calculated for a known a1
via Eq. 5. Note that if the geometric parameters of the
CCNSCB specimen do not match the values specified in
Table 5, linear interpolation should be used to calculate u,

v and Ymin .

4 Experimental Investigations

To verify the reliability of the CCNSCB method to char-

acterize KIC, the CCNSCB and NSCB specimens prepared
from two different rock types (i.e., Dazhou sandstone and
Fig. 4 The dimensionless SIF of a CCNSCB specimen when Qingdao granite) were tested. The KIC values measured
S/R = 0.8 from both methods were then compared.

 4.1 Specimen Preparation and Experimental Setup

Ymin u  eva1 5
where u and v depend only on a0 and aB. Equation 5 can be The sandstone and granite blocks used in this study were
rewritten as: quarried from Dazhou, Sichuan province and Qingdao,
 Shandong province of China, respectively. The two rocks
lnYmin v  a1 lnu: 6
were analyzed using X-ray diffraction meter and X-ray

Table 1 Critical dimensionless

a1 a0
stress intensity factors when
aB = 0.44 0.100 0.150 0.175 0.200 0.225 0.250 0.275 0.300 0.325 0.350

0.400 2.932 2.969 2.995 3.026

0.425 3.071 3.123 3.157 3.190 3.222
0.450 3.238 3.292 3.323 3.360 3.397 3.440
0.475 3.406 3.458 3.499 3.540 3.584 3.630 3.676
0.500 3.576 3.639 3.683 3.728 3.777 3.828 3.881 3.941
0.525 3.750 3.829 3.877 3.922 3.977 4.038 4.101 4.168 4.233
0.550 3.938 4.025 4.076 4.131 4.195 4.258 4.329 4.402 4.483 4.561

Table 2 Critical dimensionless stress intensity factors when aB = 0.64

a1 a0
0.100 0.150 0.175 0.200 0.225 0.250 0.275 0.300 0.325 0.350 0.375 0.400 0.425 0.450

0.400 3.012 3.052 3.076 3.103

0.425 3.168 3.212 3.239 3.270 3.304
0.450 3.328 3.381 3.411 3.446 3.483 3.522
0.475 3.502 3.557 3.592 3.630 3.672 3.715 3.762
0.500 3.685 3.745 3.782 3.826 3.872 3.922 3.973 4.029
0.525 3.871 3.939 3.982 4.031 4.080 4.139 4.200 4.265 4.329
0.550 4.069 4.142 4.191 4.245 4.298 4.366 4.436 4.510 4.586 4.664
0.575 4.272 4.356 4.406 4.465 4.534 4.605 4.687 4.769 4.856 4.947 5.043
0.600 4.480 4.575 4.632 4.694 4.772 4.855 4.941 5.038 5.138 5.244 5.351 5.467
0.625 4.694 4.801 4.867 4.940 5.023 5.115 5.213 5.320 5.435 5.556 5.686 5.822 5.960
0.650 4.917 5.030 5.105 5.187 5.281 5.385 5.496 5.617 5.747 5.882 6.031 6.191 6.352 6.520
0.675 5.141 5.264 5.347 5.444 5.544 5.664 5.786 5.919 6.069 6.225 6.392 6.576 6.764 6.959

123
Experimental and Numerical Study on the Cracked Chevron Notched Semi-Circular Bend Method

Table 3 Critical dimensionless stress intensity factors when aB = 0.84

a1 a0
0.100 0.150 0.175 0.200 0.225 0.250 0.275 0.300 0.325 0.350 0.375 0.400 0.425 0.450

0.500 3.836 3.893 3.931 3.970 4.018 4.067

0.525 4.033 4.098 4.141 4.187 4.238 4.293 4.353 4.416
0.550 4.241 4.313 4.360 4.413 4.470 4.533 4.601 4.674 4.749 4.830
0.575 4.455 4.537 4.590 4.650 4.712 4.788 4.864 4.946 5.035 5.125 5.222
0.600 4.678 4.772 4.829 4.894 4.970 5.049 5.139 5.233 5.333 5.439 5.553 5.670
0.625 4.903 5.012 5.076 5.152 5.233 5.327 5.427 5.533 5.648 5.774 5.904 6.036 6.179
0.650 5.146 5.260 5.331 5.416 5.510 5.611 5.727 5.847 5.979 6.120 6.271 6.430 6.594 6.766
0.675 5.390 5.519 5.597 5.686 5.793 5.909 6.034 6.176 6.326 6.487 6.661 6.842 7.034 7.234
0.700 5.638 5.776 5.863 5.969 6.084 6.211 6.358 6.510 6.683 6.863 7.063 7.272 7.499 7.733
0.725 5.896 6.042 6.140 6.252 6.380 6.524 6.684 6.858 7.050 7.254 7.478 7.723 7.978 8.257
0.750 6.153 6.317 6.419 6.539 6.680 6.837 7.016 7.211 7.427 7.653 7.909 8.184 8.483 8.802
0.775 6.401 6.582 6.695 6.830 6.990 7.163 7.355 7.565 7.806 8.064 8.355 8.656 8.996 9.364
0.800 6.652 6.860 6.988 7.126 7.297 7.485 7.699 7.935 8.193 8.470 8.798 9.146 9.519 9.942

Table 4 Critical dimensionless stress intensity factors when aB = 1.04

a1 a0
0.100 0.150 0.175 0.200 0.225 0.250 0.275 0.300 0.325 0.350 0.375 0.400 0.425 0.450

0.575 4.704 4.787 4.837 4.897 4.962

0.600 4.944 5.037 5.098 5.165 5.238 5.321 5.409
0.625 5.193 5.298 5.364 5.440 5.524 5.618 5.723 5.833 5.952
0.650 5.450 5.566 5.641 5.728 5.824 5.929 6.047 6.174 6.312 6.457 6.613
0.675 5.711 5.840 5.923 6.022 6.130 6.251 6.385 6.528 6.684 6.852 7.031 7.223 7.424
0.700 5.978 6.123 6.215 6.325 6.443 6.579 6.731 6.896 7.075 7.267 7.471 7.693 7.930 8.178
0.725 6.254 6.384 6.514 6.632 6.766 6.913 7.080 7.268 7.476 7.693 7.931 8.186 8.454 8.752
0.750 6.532 6.705 6.814 6.942 7.092 7.255 7.446 7.650 7.880 8.126 8.402 8.691 9.005 9.349
0.775 6.802 6.987 7.116 7.259 7.422 7.607 7.815 8.041 8.291 8.576 8.881 9.207 9.571 9.965
0.800 7.078 7.283 7.415 7.572 7.756 7.952 8.181 8.432 8.716 9.025 9.364 9.734 10.145 10.600

fluorescence spectrometer; the mineral components of the
sandstone specimens were found to be primarily quartz
(88 %), clathrasil (4 %) and iron-silicon carbide (3 %); and
the granite specimens were primarily composed of quartz
(37 %), albite (31 %), sanidine (17 %), and anorthite
(11 %). Specimens were cored from a generally homoge-
neous rock block and along the same material direction.
For the CCNSCB specimens, chevron notches were
made in two cuts by moving a rotating diamond saw into
the disc up to the designed cutting depth hc from both sides
(Fig. 5a). Then, two pieces of the CCNSCB specimens
were produced by sawing the prepared CCNBD specimen
into two equal parts. For the NSCB specimens, the circular
disc was cut into two halves prior to notching (Fig. 5b).
The operation of introducing a straight-through notch was
performed using a diamond-impregnated saw. The notch
tip was further sharpened with a diamond wire saw to
achieve a tip diameter of 0.4 mm for the NSCB sandstone
specimens. For the granite specimens, a notch width of less
than 1 mm was used, which meets the requirement of the
permissible notch width in the ISRM suggested method
(Kuruppu et al. 2014). Typical photos of the prepared
CCNSCB and NSCB specimens are shown in Fig. 5c, d.
The geometric parameters of all the tested specimens are

shown in Tables 6 (CCNSCB) and 7 (NSCB). The Ymin
values of the CCNSCB specimens were determined in
previous calculations. For the NSCB specimens, the for-
mula for calculating the mode I fracture toughness is
shown in Eq. 7, and the dimensionless SIF of the NSCB
specimen, denoted as Y, was calculated by the ISRM-
suggested formula (Kuruppu et al. 2014):
p
Pmax pa
KIC Y 7
2RB
Experiments were conducted on a hydraulic servo-con-
trolled MTS815 testing system with a MTS Teststar

123
 M.-D. Wei et al.

Table 5 Values of u and v determined by a0 and aB

a0 0.100 0.150 0.175 0.200 0.225 0.250 0.275 0.300 0.325 0.350 0.375 0.400 0.425 0.450

aB
u
0.440 1.3231 1.3190 1.3175 1.3153 1.3163 1.3106 1.3027 1.3016 1.2712 1.2608 1.2488 1.2148 1.1814 1.1618
0.480 1.3283 1.3257 1.3260 1.3255 1.3207 1.3204 1.3103 1.3038 1.2813 1.2661 1.2502 1.2200 1.1889 1.1700
0.520 1.3547 1.3529 1.3443 1.3410 1.3332 1.3289 1.3165 1.3058 1.2878 1.2669 1.2525 1.2251 1.1985 1.1752
0.560 1.3677 1.3615 1.3542 1.3531 1.3445 1.3378 1.3240 1.3108 1.2954 1.2779 1.2543 1.2326 1.2048 1.1869
0.600 1.3744 1.3717 1.3634 1.3598 1.3567 1.3410 1.3362 1.3221 1.3014 1.2815 1.2605 1.2376 1.2115 1.1902
0.640 1.3838 1.3802 1.3751 1.3707 1.3683 1.3608 1.3526 1.3366 1.3115 1.3011 1.2876 1.2420 1.2157 1.1908
0.680 1.4052 1.3962 1.3938 1.3890 1.3877 1.3809 1.3707 1.3500 1.3256 1.3184 1.2985 1.2502 1.2218 1.1966
0.720 1.4112 1.4105 1.4062 1.4060 1.4076 1.3941 1.3777 1.3599 1.3358 1.3305 1.3147 1.2783 1.2289 1.2043
0.760 1.4369 1.4285 1.4223 1.4131 1.4127 1.4068 1.3973 1.3760 1.3621 1.3563 1.3319 1.2931 1.2497 1.2296
0.800 1.4732 1.4634 1.4558 1.4460 1.4430 1.4409 1.4367 1.4156 1.3886 1.3811 1.3616 1.3381 1.2857 1.2644
0.840 1.5368 1.5222 1.5150 1.5055 1.4902 1.4739 1.4692 1.4452 1.4318 1.4023 1.3774 1.3511 1.3028 1.2752
0.880 1.5678 1.5553 1.5521 1.5509 1.5228 1.5155 1.4993 1.4706 1.4614 1.4356 1.3989 1.3735 1.3318 1.2823
0.920 1.5891 1.5770 1.5765 1.5609 1.5449 1.5314 1.5149 1.4793 1.4738 1.4513 1.4159 1.3872 1.3434 1.2978
0.960 1.6150 1.6118 1.5931 1.5870 1.5718 1.5527 1.5290 1.5013 1.4875 1.4735 1.4436 1.4037 1.3550 1.3079
1.000 1.6291 1.6189 1.6237 1.6016 1.5814 1.5647 1.5369 1.5303 1.5003 1.4885 1.4515 1.4169 1.3637 1.3233
1.040 1.6615 1.6471 1.6316 1.6148 1.5922 1.5848 1.5699 1.5693 1.5300 1.5156 1.4638 1.4446 1.3779 1.3511
v
0.440 1.9921 2.0293 2.0552 2.0738 2.1071 2.1411 2.1838 2.2160 2.2915 2.3387 2.4062 2.4727 2.5586 2.6169
0.480 1.9895 2.0291 2.0513 2.0659 2.1023 2.1308 2.1809 2.2136 2.2847 2.3339 2.4051 2.4713 2.5557 2.6154
0.520 1.9645 1.9988 2.0341 2.0622 2.0983 2.1296 2.1792 2.2232 2.2806 2.3458 2.4043 2.4704 2.5528 2.6086
0.560 1.9550 1.9974 2.0303 2.0540 2.0917 2.1276 2.1768 2.2256 2.2780 2.3351 2.4018 2.4658 2.5461 2.6072
0.600 1.9541 1.9957 2.0253 2.0521 2.0857 2.1343 2.1649 2.2206 2.2775 2.3309 2.3914 2.4616 2.5414 2.6054
0.640 1.9537 1.9927 2.0205 2.0499 2.0790 2.1173 2.1572 2.2102 2.2703 2.3211 2.3747 2.4647 2.5408 2.6030
0.680 1.9432 1.9879 2.0114 2.0407 2.0621 2.1052 2.1460 2.2034 2.2694 2.3115 2.3722 2.4574 2.5437 2.5903
0.720 1.9445 1.9789 2.0112 2.0372 2.0547 2.0925 2.1483 2.2021 2.2645 2.3016 2.3638 2.4402 2.5369 2.5955
0.760 1.9294 1.9690 1.9981 2.0268 2.0524 2.0865 2.1359 2.1929 2.2468 2.2896 2.3526 2.4368 2.5288 2.5913
0.800 1.9032 1.9470 1.9765 2.0106 2.0396 2.0716 2.1231 2.1652 2.2294 2.2638 2.3343 2.4031 2.5032 2.5869
0.840 1.8484 1.8971 1.9253 1.9587 2.0009 2.0465 2.0839 2.1419 2.1926 2.2607 2.3280 2.3986 2.4969 2.5794
0.880 1.8437 1.8907 1.9148 1.9521 1.9944 2.0307 2.0792 2.1405 2.1861 2.2508 2.3278 2.3970 2.4832 2.5722
0.920 1.8401 1.8848 1.9025 1.9484 1.9912 2.0291 2.0789 2.1398 2.1835 2.2489 2.3266 2.3958 2.4869 2.5714
0.960 1.8326 1.8727 1.8979 1.9476 1.9901 2.0279 2.0748 2.1328 2.1820 2.2435 2.3254 2.3923 2.4837 2.5705
1.000 1.8225 1.8696 1.8938 1.9437 1.9882 2.0152 2.0732 2.1312 2.1819 2.2372 2.3240 2.3895 2.4824 2.5698
1.040 1.8220 1.8676 1.8924 1.9423 1.9875 2.0139 2.0725 2.1089 2.1808 2.2358 2.3238 2.3889 2.4820 2.5679

controller (Fig. 6a); MTS TestWare-SX was used to write
the control code programs. The compression loads on the
specimen (Fig. 6b) were applied in the displacement con-
trol mode at a rate of 0.005 mm/min for both the CCNSCB
and the NSCB tests.
4.2 Mode I Fracture Toughness Results
Figure 7 shows a few typical forcetime curves recorded
during CCNSCB and NSCB tests for Dazhou sandstone
and Qingdao granite. These curves exhibit a slowly
increasing portion up to a peak followed by a rather steep
decreasing post-failure portion. For the CCNSCB tests, the
turning point at the peak force in Fig. 7 denotes the stable-
unstable fracture transition of the specimen. With the
recorded peak loads during tests and the dimensionless
SIFs shown in Tables 6 and 7, respectively, the fracture
toughness values for the two rock types can be determined,
as shown in Fig. 8 and in Tables 8 and 9. The mean
measured mode I fracture toughness using the CCNSCB
and NSCB methods are 0.57 and 0.56 MPa m0.5, respec-
tively, for sandstone; and 0.92 and 0.87 MPa m0.5,

123
Experimental and Numerical Study on the Cracked Chevron Notched Semi-Circular Bend Method

Fig. 5 Sample preparations of a the CCNSCB specimens and b the NSCB specimens; photos of c the virgin CCNSCB specimens and d the
virgin NSCB specimens

Table 6 Geometric parameters 

Rock type Specimen no. R (mm) B (mm) a0 a1 aB S/R Ymin
of the CCNSCB specimens
Sandstone 1. (09-N) 36.8 30.4 0.242 0.723 0.826 0.8 6.422
2. (24-N) 36.7 31.2 0.245 0.737 0.850 0.8 6.662
3. (22-N) 36.8 29.0 0.242 0.732 0.789 0.8 6.480
4. (26-N) 36.0 29.6 0.244 0.701 0.821 0.8 6.171
5. (06-N) 36.6 29.1 0.243 0.724 0.795 0.8 6.307
Granite 1. (01-N) 36.0 29.4 0.236 0.674 0.816 0.8 5.773
2. (02-N) 36.0 30.2 0.291 0.655 0.838 0.8 5.832
3. (03-N) 35.8 30.3 0.308 0.685 0.847 0.8 6.337
4. (04-N) 36.1 30.2 0.235 0.651 0.836 0.8 5.522
5. (05-N) 36.1 30.3 0.226 0.688 0.84 0.8 5.906

respectively, for granite. Although the failure loads measured independently by the two methods are compa-
required in the CCNSCB tests were nearly half of those rable for either rock type, showing a variance of approxi-
required in the NSCB tests, the mean values of KIC mately 2 % for the sandstone and 6 % for the granite.

123
 M.-D. Wei et al.

Table 7 Geometric parameters

Rock type Specimen no. R (mm) B (mm) A (mm) a (=a/R) aB S/R Y
of the NSCB specimens
Sandstone 1. (S-36) 36.8 31.1 13.2 0.359 0.845 0.8 5.109
2. (S-29) 36.1 30.2 13.7 0.380 0.837 0.8 5.269
3. (S-32) 36.5 30.2 14.5 0.397 0.827 0.8 5.417
4. (S-13) 36.6 30.2 13.8 0.377 0.825 0.8 5.245
5. (S-02) 37.0 30.5 14.7 0.397 0.824 0.8 5.411
Granite 1. (S-01) 37.0 29.3 14.3 0.385 0.792 0.8 5.305
2. (S-02) 36.3 30.1 15.9 0.438 0.830 0.8 5.833
3. (S-03) 36.0 29.2 14.9 0.414 0.809 0.8 5.569
4. (S-04) 36.6 30.0 14.2 0.389 0.820 0.8 5.334
5. (S-05) 36.4 30.2 15.0 0.411 0.830 0.8 5.541

Fig. 6 Photos of a the MTS815 testing system and b setup of testing a rock specimen

Figure 9 shows representative photographs of the
recovered samples. In both the CCNSCB and NSCB tests,
the cracks grew up to the loading ends of the half discs in a
relatively smooth manner with no apparent branches or
excessive fractures. In addition, although there was some-
what roughness on the recovered CCNSCB specimen sur-
faces, the macroscopic fracture appears to be developed
within the notch ligament. These observations indicate that
the real fractures observed in the experiments approach the
numerically simulated fracture scenario of the CCNSCB
specimen when S/R = 0.8 (Fig. 12 of Wei et al. 2015); and
thus agree with the fracture progress of the CCNSCB
specimen described in Fig. 2ac.
5 Discussions
In the literature, a myriad of specimens with distinct
geometries have been developed to measure the mode I
fracture toughness of rocks. Many specimens are designed
with a straight-through crack, including NSCB, CSTBD
and SECRBB specimens, among which, the NSCB speci-
men has been recently suggested by the ISRM for
measuring both the static and dynamic mode I fracture
toughness of rocks (Zhou et al. 2012; Kuruppu et al. 2014).
Note that for these sample types, fabricating a straight-
through crack with sufficient crack tip sharpness is critical
for the successful measurement of rock fracture toughness
(Bergmann and Vehoff 1994). For polycrystalline rocks, a
relatively small thickness of an intergranular crack that is
in the order of the characteristic material length is pre-
requisite for achieving reliable fracture toughness mea-
surements, as shown by Lim et al. (1994b) and later
discussed by Dai et al. (2010b). In contrast to rocks having
primarily coarse or intermediate-sized grains, elaborate
pre-cracking or sharpening of the crack tip is required for
fine-grained rocks; thus the preparation of these rock
specimens is tedious.
To circumvent the challenge of machining a sharp and
straight crack tip, the use of chevron notched specimens
appears to be a reasonable alternative. A chevron notched
ligament facilitates primary crack initiation from a
chevron tip due to the stress concentration; self-pre-
cracking then occurs during the loading process. The
fabrication of a sharp crack tip can thus be avoided.
Besides, the saw-cut chevron notch can guide the crack

123
Experimental and Numerical Study on the Cracked Chevron Notched Semi-Circular Bend Method

Fig. 7 Typical load versus displacement curves of tested specimens: a the CCNSCB (26-N) and NSCB (S-13) specimens of Dazhou sandstone;
b the CCNSCB (03-N) and NSCB (S-05) specimens of Qingdao granite

Fig. 8 Results of the fracture toughness measurements of a the sandstone tests and b the granite tests

123
 M.-D. Wei et al.

Table 8 The measured peak

Sample geometry Specimen no. Pmax (N) KIC (MPa m0.5) Mean (MPa m0.5)
loads and mode I fracture
toughness of sandstone CCNSCB 1 502.2 0.55 0.57
specimens
2 513.1 0.57
3 502.8 0.59
4 502.8 0.55
5 509.4 0.58
NSCB 1 1168.9 0.53 0.56
2 1173.2 0.59
3 1044.2 0.55
4 1145.6 0.57
5 1079.1 0.56

Table 9 The measured peak

Sample geometry Specimen no. Pmax (N) KIC (MPa m0.5) Mean (MPa m0.5)
loads and mode I fracture
toughness of granite specimens CCNSCB 1 928.5 0.96 0.92
2 818.1 0.83
3 961.6 1.06
4 808.0 0.78
5 937.3 0.96
NSCB 1 1599.5 0.83 0.87
2 1339.3 0.80
3 1706.0 0.98
4 1553.5 0.80
5 1698.9 0.93

to grow along the ligament in a stable manner until the
critical state is reached during testing. The merit of the
chevron notch on measuring fracture toughness is the
primary reason that three chevron notched specimens
(i.e., CB, SR and CCNBD) are suggested by the ISRM
(Ouchterlony 1988; Fowell 1995). Among these three
specimens, CCNBD appears to receive more attention
due to many advantages over other counterparts; it has
also been recently extended by Dai et al. (2010a) to
measure the dynamic fracture parameters of rocks using
the SHPB technique. Experimental results indicate that
compared with the NSCB and CCNSCB specimens, the
stress concentration at the contact points between the
CCNBD specimen and the loading bars is significant (Dai
et al. 2010a, 2011); this may cause the specimen to crack
at the contacting points, leading to premature failure of
the CCNBD specimen. The primary cracks of a CCNBD
specimen are typically assumed to initiate simultaneously
from both chevron notch tips and extend towards the top
and bottom loading ends with identical crack lengths.
This symmetrical crack propagation assumption is
unsubstantiated, considering the potential imperfections
from sample preparations and sample alignment in the
loading system, as well as the heterogeneity of the testing
rocks.
Considering the pros and cons of the ISRM-suggested
methods [i.e., the NSCB (Kuruppu et al. 2014) and
CCNBD (Fowell 1995) methods], it is expected that a
special method can be developed to combine the merits
while avoiding the shortcomings of both methods. The
CCNSCB method appears to be qualified to achieve this
goal; however, limited documentation of the critical
dimensionless SIFs of the CCNSCB specimen severely
inhibits its wide applications (Kuruppu and Chong 2012).
To overcome this limitation, the critical SIF values of the
CCNSCB specimens over a wide range of geometries have
been calculated in this study.
The reasons for the close KIC values in the CCNSCB
and NSCB tests may be (1) the specimen sizes are rela-
tively large compared to the grain sizes and thus can be
considered homogeneous according to the requirements by
the ISRM suggested methods; (2) by sampling the speci-
mens along the same direction, the influences of rock
anisotropy can be avoided; and (3) because the CCNSCB
sample configuration is similar to that of the NSCB spec-
imen, the size effects on measurements and the boundary
influences of the two methods can be minimized. The
NSCB tests were performed to compare the fracture
toughness measures with the current CCNSCB method
because the NSCB method is suggested by ISRM for mode

123
Experimental and Numerical Study on the Cracked Chevron Notched Semi-Circular Bend Method
Fig. 9 Typical photos of the recovered specimens: a the CCNSCB
(26-N) and NSCB (S-13) sandstone specimens and b the CCNSCB
(04-N) and NSCB (S-05) granite specimens
I fracture toughness measurements (Kuruppu et al. 2014),
and it has the same three point bend loading scheme as the
CCNSCB method. More importantly, the NSCB and
CCNSCB specimens can be intentionally designed and
prepared with the same sample size (i.e., diameter and
thickness); this avoids the effect of sizes produced by two
different sample configurations. It is well known that size
effects exist in the KIC measurements of rocks (Chong et al.
1987; Iqbal and Mohanty 2007). Even if the tested speci-
mens were prepared from the same rock cores with iden-
tical diameters, size effects among different sample
configurations can still exist. To some extent, this phe-
nomenon explains the reported variation between the
results of SR and CCNBD (Erarslan 2013), the results of
CCNBD and NSCB (Chang et al. 2002), and the results of
SCB and CB (Kuruppu and Chong 2012). Therefore, due to
size effects, it is difficult to compare the current KIC results
produced by the CCNSCB method with those from the
ISRM-suggested CB, SR and CCNBD methods. However,
by carefully designing the same diameter and thickness of
the CCNSCB and NSCB specimens, size effects can be
minimized; and thus the NSCB method is reasonable for
comparing the toughness measures produced by the
CCNSCB method. The proposed experiments thus show
that the CCNSCB method yields comparable results to the
NSCB method. As shown by the experimental results, the
CCNSCB method can be an alternative method to reliably
characterize the mode I fracture toughness of rocks.
6 Conclusions
Semi-circular bend samples are well suited for measuring
the fracture toughness of rocks due to their many advan-
tages. Although the CCNSCB method combines the virtues
of two ISRM-suggested methods (i.e., the CCNBD and
NSCB methods), it has not become as popular as the NSCB
method in practice; a crucial reason for this is that no
complete and reliable database of the critical dimensionless
SIFs for calculating the fracture toughness is available.
Based on the well-known straight-through crack assump-
tion, in this study, critical SIF values are numerically cal-
culated for the first time for a wide range of CCNSCB
geometries. The support span-to-diameter ratio is fixed at
0.8, because the fracture of the CCNSCB specimen in this
situation allows accurate measurements of the mode I
fracture toughness of rocks (Wei et al. 2015); thus, a for-
mula is proposed to determine the mode I fracture tough-
ness in association with the established tables to identify
the key parameters in the formula. Our experiments show
that, the CCNSCB method can yield close mode I fracture
toughness values with those using the ISRM-suggested
NSCB method for the same rock material. The NSCB
method was chosen to experimentally validate the
CCNSCB method because the tested NSCB specimen has a
similar three point bend load scheme; thus the size effects,
which can potentially exist between specimens of different
shapes, were minimized. Given experimental results and
numerical calibrations, the proposed CCNSCB method has
been shown to be viable for determining the mode I frac-
ture toughness of rocks.
Acknowledgments The authors are grateful for the financial sup-
port from the National Program on Key basic Research Project (No.
2015CB057903), the Youth Science Technology Fund of Sichuan
Province (No. 2014JQ0004), National Natural Science Foundation of
China (No. 51374149), Program for New Century Excellent Talents
in University (NCET-13-0382) and the Doctoral Fund of Ministry of
Education of China (No. 20130181110044).
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