“…The fracture toughness of brittle materials is reduced due the existence of pre-existing cracks (Kato & Nishioka, 2005). Intensive theoretical and experimental studies have frequently devoted their effort to brittle failure in engineering structures and components with cracks and/or notches Aliha et al, 2014Aliha et al, , 2016Ayatollahi et al, 2015;Fakhri et al, 2017;Fayed, 2008Fayed, , 2017Fayed et al, 2008;Hammouda et al, 2003aHammouda et al, , 2004Hammouda et al, , 2002Razmi & Mirsayar, 2017;Wei et al, 2016Wei et al, , 2017a. It was experimentally noticed that crack extension occurred in mode I rather than shear mode or mixed mode.…”