Weakest link model with imperfection density function: Application to three point bend of a tungsten carbide

A general weakest link model adapted to finite element analyses recently proposed by the authors is in this paper applied and optimized against three point bending experiments on two geometrically identical specimens with different sizes. Influence of the choice of description of material imperfections in the model on the result is investigated together with two different types of failure criteria. Due to the choice of failure criteria only one finite element analysis has to be performed. The results show that the model can be fitted well to the experimental results.