English

Crack initiation in viscoelastic materials

Soft Condensed Matter 2018-07-04 v1 Statistical Mechanics

Abstract

In viscoelastic materials, individually short-lived bonds collectively result in a mechanical resistance which is long-lived but finite, as ultimately cracks appear. Here we provide a microscopic mechanism by which cracks emerge from the nonlinear local bond dynamics. This mechanism is different from crack initiation in solids, which is governed by a competition between elastic and adhesion energy. We provide and numerically verify analytical equations for the dependence of the critical crack length on the bond kinetics and applied stress.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1802.04017,
  title  = {Crack initiation in viscoelastic materials},
  author = {Yuval Mulla and Giorgio Oliveri and Johannes T. B. Overvelde and Gijsje H. Koenderink},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1802.04017},
  year   = {2018}
}

Comments

Main text 6 pages SI 2 pages

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