Stresses in the vicinity of the crack tips are responsible for failure of crack-containing components. The singular stress contribution is characterised by the stress intensity factor K, the first regular stress term is represented by the so-called T-stress. Whereas in the main volume, IKM 50, predominantly one-dimensional cracks were considered in homogeneous materials, this supplement volume compiles new results on one-dimensional and two-dimensional cracks.

Most ceramics show an increase of the crack growth resistance during crack propagation (R-curve behaviour). Reasons for such behaviour are bridging effects between opposite crack surfaces, phase transformations around the tip of a crack, and development of micro-cracking zones.
This booklet predominantly deals with the bridging behaviour and the discussion of the observed effects in terms of the fracture mechanics weight function procedure.