What is the fracture strength?

[BobGom]

I am having difficult finding the meaning of the term 'fracture strength'. Wikipedia indicates (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flexural_strength) it means the flexural or bending strength but that is unsourced and marked as dubious. I was also wondering if it could be synonymous with fracture toughness or something else entirely. Unfortunately the paper I have come across gives no indication of it's meaning or even the units.

[Mapes]

Fracture strength isn't consistently defined, as you've seen. The most common definition I've seen for true fracture strength is the fracture load divided by the final cross-sectional area (see, for example, Hertzberg's Deformation and Fracture Mechanics of Engineering Materials). It's measured in units of stress. It's definitely not synonymous with fracture toughness.