Related papers: Tunable failure: control of rupture through rigidi…
Thin layers of elastomers bonded to two rigid plates demonstrate unusual failure response. Historically, it has been believed that strongly-bonded layers fail by two distinct mechanisms: (i) internal/external penny-shaped crack nucleation…
Living organisms can demonstrate highly adaptable and sophisticated responses using memory resulting from repeated exposure to external conditions or training. However, realizing similar adaptability in mechanical responses in inanimate,…
The rigidity transition occurs when, as the density of microscopic components is increased, a disordered medium becomes able to transmit and ensure macroscopic mechanical stability, owing to the appearance of a space-spanning rigid…
The toughness of a polymer material can increase significantly if two networks are combined into one material. This toughening effect is a consequence of a transition from a brittle to a ductile failure response. Although this transition…
As a model of composite material, the fiber bundle model has been chosen -where a bundle of fibers is subjected to external load and fibers have distributed thresholds. For different loading conditions, such a system shows few precursors…
The dynamics of a crack propagating in an elastic inhomogeneous material is investigated. The variations of the average crack velocity with the external loading are measured for a brittle rock and are shown to display two distinct regimes:…
Quasi-brittle behavior where macroscopic failure is preceded by stable damaging and intensive cracking activity is a desired feature of materials because it makes fracture predictable. Based on a fiber bundle model with global load sharing…
Tunable mechanics and fracture resistance are hallmarks of biological tissues and highly desired in engineered materials. To elucidate the underlying mechanisms, we study a rigidly percolating double network (DN) made of a stiff and a…
Traditional member-based two-step design approaches included in current structural codes for steel structures, as well as more recent system-based direct-design alternatives, require building rigorous structural reliability frameworks for…
Mechanical components that are exposed to cyclic mechanical loading fail at loads that are well below the ultimate tensile strength. This process is known as fatigue. The failure time, that is the time when a first crack forms, is highly…
Slow crack propagation in ductile, and in certain brittle materials, appears to take place via the nucleation of voids ahead of the crack tip due to plastic yields, followed by the coalescence of these voids. Post mortem analysis of the…
Understanding failure in nanomaterials is critical for the design of reliable structural materials and small-scale devices that have components or microstructural elements at the nanometer length scale. No consensus exists on the effect of…
We study the sample size dependence of the strength of disordered materials with a flaw, by numerical simulations of lattice models for fracture. We find a crossover between a regime controlled by the fluctuations due to disorder and…
Cutting mechanics in soft solids have been a subject of study for several decades, an interest fuelled by the multitude of its applications, including material testing, manufacturing, and biomedical technology. Wire cutting is the simplest…
Curvature and mechanics are intimately connected for thin materials, and this coupling between geometry and physical properties is readily seen in folded structures from intestinal villi and pollen grains, to wrinkled membranes and…
Understanding the role played by the microstructure of materials on their macroscopic failure properties is an important challenge in solid mechanics. Indeed, when a crack propagates at a heterogeneous brittle interface, the front is…
Mechanical metamaterials are periodic lattice structures with complex unit cell architectures that can achieve extraordinary mechanical properties beyond the capability of bulk materials. A new class of metamaterials is proposed, whose…
Fracture toughness is the material property characterizing resistance to failure. Predicting its value from the solid structure at the atomistic scale remains elusive, even in the simplest situations of brittle fracture. We report here…
Fractures are ubiquitous in the subsurface. The flow and mechanical properties of these fractures are controlled by its compliance or stiffness. Characterizing fracture compliance and conductivity is crucial in applications such as fault…
Continuum mechanics describes compressive failure as a standard bifurcation in the response of a material to an increasing load: damage, which initially grows uniformly in the material, localizes within a thin band at failure. Yet,…