Background:Long story short, we have a design that utilizes a glass ceramic (Macor(R)) type mechanical fuse that will shear prior to a defined load. This was essentially designed through trial and error and now we are in a position where we need to substantiate the design. We undertook testing of the ceramic fuses and there was (predictably) a lot of scatter - Also.

Problem Statement:Does anyone have any experience determining the shear strength of glass ceramics. Notably, this is the way they are usually used, therefore they tend not to have defined properties. The ceramic we are using can be found at Link.

Currently the only shear strength value we can find is in a research report which isn't clear about how this property has been identified, and provides a result almost 5 standard deviations away from our test data suggests...

We are currently trying to arrange further testing but we would like (if we can find an appropriate method) to back this up with a calculated/estimated shear strength figure. Is there any empirical or failure theories you would recommend to go alongside the test data?

Thanks for your help,

Otibix