Fracture toughness

In materials science, fracture toughness is the critical stress intensity factor of a sharp crack where
propagation of the crack suddenly becomes rapid and unlimited. A component's thickness affects
the constraint conditions at the tip of a crack with thin components having plane stress conditions
and thick components having plane strain conditions. Plane strain conditions give the lowest fracture
toughness value which is a material property. Fracture toughness is a quantitative way of expressing
a material's resistance to crack propagation and standard values for a given material are generally
available.