Related papers: Gravity-driven instabilities: interplay between st…
The structure of random sphere packings in mechanical equilibrium in prescribed stress states, as studied by molecular dynamics simulations, strongly depends on the assembling procedure. Frictionless packings in the limit of low pressure…
A dynamic crack will travel in a straight path up to a material-dependent critical speed beyond which its path becomes erratic. Predicting this critical speed and discovering the origin of this instability are two outstanding problems in…
The propagation of an interfacial crack front through a weak plane of a transparent Plexiglas block has been studied experimentally. A stable crack in mode I was generated by loading the system by an imposed displacement. The local…
The process of frictional rupture, i.e. the failure of frictional systems, abounds in the technological and natural world around us, ranging from squealing car brake pads to earthquakes along geological faults. A general framework for…
Flow in soft materials encompasses a wide range of viscous, plastic and elastic phenomena which provide challenges to modelling at the microscopic level. To create a controlled flow, we perform falling ball viscometry tests on packings of…
We investigate the propagation of the slip front in the elastic body on the rigid substrate. We first obtain the slip profile and the slip front velocity of the steady state by employing the local friction law with the quadratic form of the…
We investigate the propagation of fluid-driven fault slip on a slip-weakening frictional interface separating two identical half-spaces of a three-dimensional elastic solid. Our focus is on axisymmetric circular shear ruptures as they…
Scale invariance is a central organizing principle in physics, underlying phenomena that range from critical behaviour in statistical mechanics to transport and chaos in nonlinear dynamical systems. Here we present a unified and physically…
Friction is fundamental to mechanical stability across scales, from geological faults and architectural structures to granular materials and animal feet. We study the mechanical stability of a minimal friction-stabilized structure composed…
We study the appearance of large-scale dynamical heterogeneities in a simplified model of a driven, dissipative granular system. Simulations of steady-state gravity-driven flows of inelastically colliding hard disks show the formation of…
We study the dynamics of a single inertial run-and-tumble particle on a straight line. The motion of this particle is characterized by two intrinsic time-scales, namely, an inertial and an active time-scale. We show that interplay of these…
We present a computational study of sliding between gold clusters and a highly oriented pyrolytic graphite substrate, a material system that exhibits ultra-low friction due to structural lubricity. By means of molecular dynamics, it is…
We investigate the shrinkage induced breakup of thin layers of heterogeneous materials attached to a substrate, a ubiquitous natural phenomenon with a wide range of potential applications. Focusing on the evolution of the fragment ensemble,…
We consider a sheared granular system experiencing intermittent dynamics of stick-slip type via discrete element simulations. The considered setup consists of a two-dimensional system of soft frictional particles sandwiched between solid…
The development of rate- and state-dependent friction laws offered important insights into the key physical mechanisms of the frictional behaviour of fault gouges and their seismic cycle. However, past approaches were specifically tailored…
We study numerically stick slip motions in a model of blocks and springs being pulled slowly. The sliding friction is assumed to change dynamically with a state variable. The transition from steady sliding to stick-slip is subcritical in a…
Rate- and state-dependent friction law for velocity-step tests is analyzed from a thermodynamic point of view. A simple macroscopic non-equilibrium thermodynamic model with a single internal variable reproduces instantaneous jump and…
This paper presents the stability analysis of a system sliding at low velocities ($< 100 \mu$m.s$^{-1}$) under a periodically modulated normal load, preserving interfacial contact. Experiments clearly evidence that normal vibrations…
Disordered materials under an imposed forcing can display creep and aging effects, accompanied by intermittent, spatially heterogeneous dynamics. We propose a unifying microscopic description of these phenomena, based on the notion that as…
Wearless dry friction of an elastic block of weight N, driven by an external force F over a rigid substrate, is investigated. The slider and substrate surfaces are both microscopically rough, interacting via a repulsive potential that…