Abstract: The fracture behaviour of glass in biaxial stress state has been investigated. Fracture toughness of disk specimen with a straight-through crack was measured under biaxial tension and uniaxial tension loads respectively. The difference between them and the reasons for the difference are discussed. The influence of the stress parallel to crack on fracture of brittle material was demonstrated in theory and experiments. The results show that plane stress fracture toughness of glass is not a material constant. and that the fracture toughness measured in biaxial tension state is higher than that measured under uniaxial tension. The conventional fracture criterion upon the stress intensity factor is questioned in the case of biaxial stress problem, and the strain dependence of crack growth is discussed.