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This paper deals with the influence of the cold drawing process on the fracturebehaviour of pearlitic steels. To this end, fracture test under axial loading were performed onsteel wires with different drawing degree (from a hot rolled bar to a commercial prestressingsteel wire), transversely pre-cracked by fatigue, analyzing in detail the changes in fracturemicromechanisms. The deflection angles of the fracture path were measured by longitudinalmetallographic sections and the characteristic parameters of the load-displacement plot wererelated to different fracture events. Results allowed a calculation of critical stress intensityfactors for different fracture angles and drawing degrees, thus evaluating the strengthanisotropy and obtaining a sort of directional toughness.