ABSTRACT
An interface edge is the likeliest site of fracture initiation because of the stress singularity due to modulus mismatch. As illustrated in Fig. 5.1, the singular stress (stress-concentrated) region near the interface edge proportionally scales down [Becker et al., 1997] in a continuum media as the size of a component becomes small. In a component with single-micrometer or nanometer size, the region governed by the singular field is confined in the nano-scale [Kitamura et al., 2002, 2003]. In such a case, the applicability of fracture mechanics to the crack initiation from the edge is questionable because the concept is built on continuum mechanics.
