Related papers: Cracking Condition of Cohesionless Porous Material…

Cohesive granular materials, like wet sand, retain their shape before yielding under stress. This solid-like behavior is associated with elasticity. As the loading increases, the material typically flows. However, cohesive materials can…

The drying of a colloidal dispersion can result in a gel phase defined as a porous matrix saturated in solvent. During the drying process, high mechanical stresses are generated. When these stresses exceed the strength of the material, they…

We study the crackling noise emerging during single crack propagation in a specimen under three-point bending conditions. Computer simulations are carried out in the framework of a discrete element model where the specimen is discretized in…

Brittle materials fail catastrophically. In consequence of their limited flaw-tolerance, failure occurs by localized fracture and is typically a dynamic process. Recently, experiments on epithelial cell monolayers have revealed that this…

Crack formation is conventionally described as a nucleation phenomenon despite the fact that the temperatures necessary to overcome the nucleation barrier are far too high. In this paper we consider the possibility that cracks are created…

We investigate the fragmentation process of solid materials with crystalline and amorphous phases using the discrete element method. Damage initiates inside spherical samples above the contact zone in a region where the circumferential…

We study how the dynamics of a drying front propagating through a porous medium are affected by small-scale correlations in material properties. For this, we first present drying experiments in micro-fluidic micro-models of porous media.…

The drying dynamics in three dimensional porous media are studied with confocal microscopy. We observe abrupt air invasions in size from single particle to hundreds of particles. We show that these result from the strong flow from menisci…

Percolation of fine particles (fines) in a static bed of larger particles is central to many industrial and natural processes. Non-cohesive fines either pass through the bed or become trapped depending on multiple factors including particle…

Drying of colloidal dispersion and their consolidation into a particulate deposit is a common phenomenon. This process involves various physical processes such as diffusion of liquid molecules into the ambient atmosphere and advection of…

We investigate the initiation of cracks in vertically freestanding water-saturated colloidal pillars constructed using a direct-write technique. Paradoxically, the cracks form during drying at the free end, far from the substrate, where the…

The ordering of particles in the drying process of a colloidal suspension is crucial in determining the properties of the resulting film. For example, microscopic inhomogeneities can lead to the formation of cracks and defects that can…

The concept of cracking refers to the tendency of a fluid distribution to "split'', once it abandons the equilibrium. In this manuscript we develop a general formalism to describe the occurrence of cracking within a dissipative fluid…

Cracks in thin layers are influenced by what lies beneath them. From buried craters to crocodile skin, crack patterns are found over an enormous range of length scales. Regardless of absolute size, their substrates can dramatically…

Drying complex fluids is a common phenomenon where a liquid phase transforms into a dense or porous solid. This transformation involves several physical processes, such as the diffusion of liquid molecules into the surrounding atmosphere…

During drying of colloidal suspensions, colloidal particles can form concentrated particle layers beneath the receding free surface. The drying rate can gradually decrease with the growth of the particle layers. We construct a model to…

We study how the loading rate, specimen geometry and microstructural texture select the dynamics of a crack moving through an heterogeneous elastic material in the quasi-static approximation. We find a transition, fully controlled by two…

We consider percolation and jamming transitions for particulate systems exposed to compression. For the systems built of particles interacting by purely repulsive forces in addition to friction and viscous damping, it is found that these…

Drying induced cracking of concrete surfaces and repair layers is a common problem. A principal cause for this type of cracking is the moisture and resulting contraction gradient that develops in the cement paste matrix upon drying. This…

Many clays, soils, biological tissues, foods, and coatings are shrinkable, granular materials: they are composed of packed, hydrated grains that shrink when dried. In many cases, these packings crack during drying, critically hindering…