The objective of this study is to analyze the participants' views on the impact of the Erasmus program on professional training and personal development of participants, highlighting the effects of the Erasmus mobility on student participants (educational level, professional, cultural, interpersonal, etc.). The participants in this study were 89 students of technical universities participating in the Erasmus mobility. The research involved a survey based on a questionnaire centered on the educational/vocational impact, cultural impact, and the relational impact of the Erasmus mobility on the personal and professional development of students/beneficiaries. The results show that an Erasmus mobility stimulate the acquisition of a social and cultural capital, acquisitions hard to gain in an otherwise normal context of life.

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Using the asymmetric semi-circular bend specimen (ASCB) with vertical crack, a series of mixed mode I/II fracture tests were performed on two different rigid polyurethanes materials. The experimental results obtained for brittle fracture are compared with the theoretical predictions based on MTS and SED criteria. The results demonstrate that the SED criterion gives better results for mode II loading conditions, while for mode I and predominantly mode I both criteria are accurate.Keywords: ASCB specimen, mixed mode I/II, brittle fracture. Introduction.Brittle mixed mode fracture is a frequently mode of failure in engineering materials and components containing cracks and defects. Many different fracture criteria were proposed for mixed mode I/II fracture investigation, in order to determine the critical conditions at which a crack will initiate. Erdogan and Sih (1963) have formulated the maximum tangential stress (MTS) criterion, which was generalized by Smith et al. (2001) by taking into account the influence of the non-singular T-stress. The minimum strain energy density (SED) criterion introduced by Sih (1974) is another criterion, which has received researchers attention. Several different types of specimens were used in experiments. Thus, Mahajan and Ravi-Chandar (1989) have conducted their study on PMMA and Homalite-100 employing a center-cracked panel specimen. Aliha and Ayatollahi (2012) have analyzed the fracture initiation angle in some ceramics using the cracked Brazilian disc specimen. Introduced by Chong and Kuruppu (1984) for testing mode I fracture toughness, the semi-circular bend specimen (SCB) with angled-crack was also employed by Ayatollahi and Aliha (2006) to the fracture behaviour investigation of rock materials. Recently, Ayatollahi et al. (2011) have proposed the ASCB specimen with vertical crack for study of mixed mode brittle fracture on PMMA. Taking into account the advantages of the ASCB specimen (Ayatollahi et al., 2011) the experimental tests reported in this paper employ this type of specimen.Mixed mode fracture behavior for two types of rigid polyurethanes was investigated based on MTS and SED criteria. The elastic modulus E and the

This paper investigates the fracture properties and notch effect of PUR materials with four different densities. The asymmetric semi-circular bend specimen was adapted to perform mixed mode fracture toughness tests. This semi-circular specimen with radius R, which contains an edge crack of length a oriented normal to the specimen edge, loaded with a three point bending fixture, was proved to give wide range of mixed modes from pure mode I to pure mode II, only by changing the position of one support. Different types of notched specimens were considered for notch effect investigations and the Theory of Critical Distances was applied. It could be seen that the critical distances are influenced by the cellular structure of investigated materials.