Hello, imechanicians,

  If you are (or to be) an experimentalist and have a good idea, please help me!

  I have a Si - Si DCB and would like to initiate a crack and hold it as it is (similar to a crack initiated in mica with a razor blade) According to my calculation, I need something like 1 to 5 um thickness. It could be sometime like a wedge shape.

  If you have any good idea, please give me a suggestion!

 Thank you,

Masa

The 2nd International Conference on Advanced Computational Engineering and Experimenting, ACE-X2008

Barcelona, Spain, July 14-15, 2008.

For more information, please check the ACE-X2008 website www.ace-x2008.com <http://www.ace-x2008.com/>

I found an interesting paper on the arXiv website that may interest some mechanicians.  Markus

Title:  Brittle fracture down to femto-Joules — and below

Authors: J. Astrom, P.C.F. Di Stefano, F. Probst, L. Stodolsky, J. Timonen