Curved weak interfaces present promising advantages to be implemented as crack arrestors in structures designed under the tolerant-design principles. Among other advantages, they neither add extra weight nor affect significantly to the global stiffness of the structural element, in contrast with other crack arrestors. To be employed as crack arrestor, it is key that the interface can deviate the crack. If the crack penetrates across the interface, the effect of the weak interface as crack arrestor is canceled. In view of this, this work studies how to set the interface parameters to promote the crack deviation along the interface. In particular, following the dimensional analysis of the problem, the effect of three significant dimensionless parameters is studied: interface to bulk fracture toughness, interface to bulk tensile strength and the interface curvature radius normalized with the material characteristic length. The study is carried out using the Coupled Criterion of the Finite Fracture Mechanics.
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