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We describe a new phenomenon in models of coalescence and fragmentation, that of gel-shatter cycles. These are dynamical, unforced, stochastic cycles in which slow, approximately deterministic coalescence up to and beyond gelation is…
The problem of dynamic symmetric branching of an initial single brittle crack propagating at a given speed under plane loading conditions is studied within a continuum mechanics approach. Griffith's energy criterion and the principle of…
We study the genesis and the selective propagation of complex crack networks induced by thermal shock or drying of brittle materials. We use a quasi-static gradient damage model to perform large scale numerical simulations showing that the…
A droplet of surfactant spreading on an ultrasoft ($E \lesssim 100$ Pa) gel substrate will produce capillary fractures at the gel surface; these fractures originate at the contact-line and propagate outwards in a starburst pattern. There is…
This study addresses ductile fracture of single grains in metals by modeling of the formation and propagation of transgranular cracks. A proposed model integrates gradient extended hardening, phase-field modeling for fracture, and crystal…
The relevant parameters at the microstructure scale that govern the macroscopic toughness of disordered brittle materials are investigated theoretically. We focus on planar crack propagation and describe the front evolution as the…
We formulate a minimal ansatz for local stress distribution in a solid that includes the possibility of strongly anharmonic short-length motions. We discover a broken-symmetry metastable phase that exhibits an aperiodic, frozen-in stress…
In a previous paper (Leblond et al., 2011), we proposed a theoretical interpretation of the experimentally well known instability of coplanar crack propagation in mode I+III. The interpretation relied on a stability analysis based on…
Prediction of hydrogen embrittlement requires a robust modelling approach and this will foster the safe adoption of hydrogen as a clean energy vector. A generalised computational model for hydrogen embrittlement is here presented, based on…
Charged colloidal crystals exhibit a subtle interplay between electrostatic screening and elastic deformation. In an anisotropic elastic medium the coupling between dilation and the local ionic environment becomes direction dependent,…
We provide a clear energetic insight into the catastrophic nature of the so-called creasing and pull-in instabilities in soft electro-active elastomers. These phenomena are ubiquitous for thin electro-elastic plates and are a major obstacle…
Cell crawling requires the generation of intracellular forces by the cytoskeleton and their transmission to an extracellular substrate through specific adhesion molecules. Crawling cells show many features of excitable systems, such as…
Griffith's energetic criterion, or `energy balance', has for a century formed the basis for fracture mechanics; the energy flowing into a crack front is precisely balanced by the dissipation (fracture energy) at the front. If the crack…
A new model is presented to predict hydrogen-assisted fatigue. The model combines a phase field description of fracture and fatigue, stress-assisted hydrogen diffusion, and a toughness degradation formulation with cyclic and hydrogen…
Dynamic fracture experiments were performed in PMMA over a wide range of velocities and reveal that the fracture energy exhibits an abrupt 3-folds increase from its value at crack initiation at a well-defined critical velocity, below the…
Fracture in a disordered lattice system is studied. In our system, particles are initially arranged on the triangular lattice and each nearest-neighbor pair is connected with a randomly chosen soft or hard Hookean spring. Every spring has…
The crux of the present study is to analyze the Mode I crack propagation behavior in a pre-stressed monoclinic crystalline strip of finite thickness and infinite extent. The investigation focuses on the effects of collinear Griffith cracks…
Modeling hydrogen embrittlement (HE) is a long-standing engineering challenge, which has experienced significant developments in recent years. Yet, there is a gap in modeling the effect of the kinetics of hydrogen segregation at…
Growth-induced instabilities are ubiquitous in biological systems and lead to diverse morphologies in the form of wrinkling, folding, and creasing. The current work focusses on the mechanics behind growth-induced wrinkling instabilities in…
We discuss the threshold activated extremal dynamics that is prevalent in the breakdown processes in heterogeneous materials. We model such systems by an elastic spring network with random breaking thresholds assigned to the springs.…