Fracture toughness is a measure of a material's ability to resist fracture in the presence of a crack. Fracture toughness tests generally require a specimen that contains a pre-existing crack, often generated by fatigue pre-cracking. For specimens where the crack tip remains predominantly elastic, a fracture toughness test involves loading a specimen monotonically to the point where the crack extends in an unstable manner, causing fracture of the specimen. In situations where significant crack tip plasticity exists, alternative elastic-plastic measures of fracture toughness are used. Most fracture toughness tests follow standardized procedures that are facilitated by software to automate the test procedure and analysis of results

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