The failure time of samples of heterogeneous materials (wood, fiberglass) is studied as a function of the applied stress. It is shown that in these materials the failure time is predicted with a good accuracy by a model of microcrack nucleation proposed by Pomeau. It is also shown that the crack growth process presents critical features when the failure time is approached.
@article{arxiv.cond-mat/9905161,
title = {Failure time and microcrack nucleation},
author = {A. Guarino and S. Ciliberto and A. Garcimartin},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:cond-mat/9905161},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
13 pages, 4 figures, submitted to Europhysics Letters