Related papers: Flaw-driven Failure in Nanostructures
In this paper theoretical and statistical/experimental criteria for determining the nanoscale strength of materials are proposed. In particular, quantized criteria in fracture mechanics, dynamic fracture mechanics and fatigue, as well as an…
Nanoscale materials display enhanced strength and toughness but also larger fluctuations and more pronounced size effects with respect to their macroscopic counterparts. Here we study the system size-dependence of the failure strength…
The lifetime and performance of any engineering component, from nanoscale sensors to macroscopic structures, are strongly influenced by fracture processes. Fracture itself is a highly localized event; originating at the atomic scale by bond…
This study investigated, experimentally and numerically, the fracturing behavior of thermoset polymer structures featuring cracks and sharp u-notches. It is shown that, even for cases in which the sharpness of the notch would suggest…
Tight-binding molecular dynamics simulations shed light into the fracture mechanisms and the ideal strength of tetrahedral amorphous carbon and of nanocomposite carbon containing diamond crystallites, two of the hardest materials. It is…
The failure stresses and strains of nanotubes given by theoretical or numerical predictions are much higher than observed in experiments. We show that defects can explain part of this discrepancy: for an n-atom defect with 2<=n<=8, the…
This work proposes an investigation on the scaling of the structural strength of polymer/graphene nanocomposites. To this end, fracture tests on geometrically scaled Single Edge Notch Bending (SENB) specimens with varying contents of…
Amorphous solids, confined on the nano-scale, exhibit a wealth of novel phenomena yet to be explored. In particular, the response of such solids to a mechanical load is not well understood and, as has been demonstrated experimentally, it…
Micro and nanoscale materials have remarkable mechanical properties, such as enhanced strength and toughness, but usually display sample-to-sample fluctuations and non-trivial size effects, a nuisance for engineering applications and an…
Natural hard composites like human bone possess a combination of strength and toughness that exceeds that of their constituents and of many engineered composites. This augmentation is attributed to their complex hierarchical structure,…
Recent progress in nanotechnology enables us to utilize the elastic strain engineering, the emerging technology capable of controlling the physio-chemical properties of materials via externally-imposed elastic strains, for hard materials.…
Polylactic acid (PLA) nanofibrous networks have gained substantial interest across various engineering and scientific disciplines, such as tissue engineering, drug delivery, and filtration, due to their unique and multifunctional…
Highly-deformable materials, from synthetic hydrogels to biological tissues, are becoming increasingly important from both fundamental and practical perspectives. Their mechanical behaviors, in particular the dynamics of crack propagation…
Polymer composite materials are widely used for their exceptional mechanical properties, notably their ability to resist large deformations. Here we examine the failure stress and strain of rubbers reinforced by varying amounts of…
The precise mechanisms underlying the failure of multi-phase materials may be strongly dependent on the material's microstructural morphology. Micromechanical modeling has provided much insight into this dependence, but uncertainties remain…
We discuss how simulations of mechanical properties of materials require descriptions at many different length scales --- from the nanoscale where an atomic description is appropriate, through a mesoscale where dislocation based…
We investigate the approach to catastrophic failure in a model porous granular material undergoing uniaxial compression. A discrete element computational model is used to simulate both the micro-structure of the material and the complex…
We use molecular simulations to explore how sample dimensions and interfacial properties impact some generic aspects of the mechanical and structural behavior of nanoconfined materials. Specifically, we calculate the strain-dependent…
In this paper, we investigate plasticity in irradiated FeCrAl nanopillars using discrete dislocation dynamics simulations (DDD), with comparisons to transmission electron microscopic (TEM) in situ tensile tests of ion and neutron irradiated…
Elastomeric materials display a complicated set of stretchability and fracture properties that strongly depend on the flaw size, which has long been of interest to engineers and materials scientists. Here, we combine experiments and…