Related papers: Fracture Toughness of Silicate Glasses: Insights f…
We use large-scale simulations to investigate the dynamic fracture of silica and sodium-silicate glasses under uniaxial tension. The stress-strain curves demonstrate that silica glass is brittle whereas the glasses rich in Na show…
The existence of nanoscale ductility during the fracture of silicate glasses remains controversial. Here, based on molecular dynamics simulations coupled with topological constraint theory, we show that nano-ductility arises from the…
Quantitative understanding of the fracture toughness of metallic glasses, including the associated ductile-to-brittle transitions, is not yet available. Here we use a simple model of plastic deformation in glasses, coupled to an advanced…
We compare the ability of various interaction potentials to predict the structural and mechanical properties of silica and sodium silicate glasses. While most structural quantities show a relatively mild dependence on the potential used,…
The fracture energy of brittle materials rises with crack velocity, and this effect is typically attributed to surface roughening from path instabilities. Here we show, using molecular dynamics simulations of silica glass with a…
The strengths of glasses are intricately linked to their atomic-level heterogeneity. Atomistic simulations are frequently used to investigate the statistical physics of this relationship, compensating for the limited spatiotemporal…
The difference between free surface energy and fracture toughness in amorphous silica is studied via multi-scale simulations. We combine the homogenization of a molecular dynamics fracture model with a phase-field approach to track and…
The widespread use of sodium aluminosilicate glass in many engineering applications due to its mechanical and optical properties (transparency, dielectric, etc.), has become common in recent years. However, glass, a brittle material, has…
Fracture toughness is a critical mechanical property of glasses, but a detailed understanding of its link to composition and structure is still missing. Here, focusing on the industrially important family of calcium aluminosilicate glasses,…
Cement is the most widely used manufacturing material in the world and improving its toughness would allow for the design of slender infrastructure, requiring less material. To this end, we investigate by means of molecular dynamics…
We have studied the low speed fracture regime for different glassy materials with variable but controlled length scales of heterogeneity in a carefully mastered surrounding atmosphere. By using optical and atomic force (AFM) microscopy…
We report in situ Atomic Force Microscopy experiments which reveal the presence of nanoscale damage cavities ahead of a stress-corrosion crack tip in glass. Their presence might explain the departure from linear elasticity observed in the…
Amorphous silica ($a-SiO_2$) is a widely used inorganic material. Interestingly, the relationship between the local atomic structures of $a-SiO_2$ and their effects on ductility and fracture is seldom explored. Here, we combine large-scale…
In order to design tougher materials, it is crucial to understand the relationship between their composition and their resistance to fracture. To this end, we investigate the fracture toughness of usual sodium silicate glasses (NS) and…
Fractoluminescence experiments are performed on two kinds of silicate glasses. All the light spectra collected during dynamic fracture reveal a black body radiator behaviour, which is interpreted as a crack velocity-dependent temperature…
We study a calcium aluminosilicate glass of composition (SiO2)0.60(Al2O3)0.10(CaO)0.30 by means of molecular dynamics. To this end, we conduct parallel simulations, following a consistent methodology, but using three different potentials.…
Understanding the fracture toughness of glasses is of prime importance for science and technology. We study it here using extensive atomistic simulations in which the interaction potential, glass transition cooling rate and loading geometry…
Understanding the fracture toughness (resistance) of glasses is a fundamental problem of prime theoretical and practical importance. Here we theoretically study its dependence on the loading rate, the age (history) of the glass and the…
The present review is intended to revisit the advances and debates in the comprehension of the mechanisms of subcritical crack propagation in silicate glasses almost a century after its initial developments. Glass has inspired the initial…
The molecular structures of amorphous silica and crystalline quartz are used to predict their intrinsic strength and fracture toughness together with the theoretical strength of silicon dioxide. At the atomic scale, the amorphous silica is…