Abstract
A common approach for the determination of Slow Crack Growth (SCG) parameters
are the static and dynamic loading method. Since materials with small Weibull
module show a large variability in strength, a correct statistical analysis of the
data is indispensable. In this work we propose the use of the Maximum Likelihood
method and a Baysian analysis, which, in contrast to the standard procedures, take
into account that failure strengths are Weibull distributed. The analysis provides
estimates for the SCG parameters, the Weibull module, and the corresponding confidence
intervals and overcomes the necessity of manual differentiation between inert
and fatigue strength data. We compare the methods to a Least Squares approach,
which can be considered the standard procedure. The results for dynamic loading
data from the glass sealing of MEMS devices show that the assumptions inherent
to the standard approach lead to significantly different estimates.