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I'm working on 3d simulation of solid fracture, primarily for graphics applications. I have one question about the Rankine fracture criteria, which is widely used in the computer graphics community.

The maximum principal stress fracture criteria, aka the Rankine criteria, states that the fracture is initiated when the greatest tensile principal stress in the solid reaches a critical magnitude: $$\sigma{}_{1 max} = \sigma{}_{TS}$$ where the subscript TS stands for tensile strength.

My question is: Does this criteria only apply in tensile loading? Is it that this criteria can only model the 'Mode I' fracture?

Note: the 'Mode I' fracture means the 'Open' fracture, as can be seen here: Fracture wikipedia.

Fei Zhu
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This is a pretty old question, so you've probably already found the answer elsewhere, but I will put one here for completeness.

The short answer is YES. The Rankine failure criterion is typically only used to model tensile failure of a material due to fracture. Many materials that are brittle in tension, like concrete, can actually be ductile under extreme compression (assuming that the appropriate loads are applied to prevent other fracture modes).

Tyler Olsen
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