Related papers: Taming intermittent plasticity at small scales
Starting from a semi-empirical potential designed for Cu, we developed a series of potentials that provide essentially constant values of all significant (calculated) materials properties except for the intrinsic stacking fault energy,…
We investigate the size scaling of the macroscopic fracture strength of heterogeneous materials when microscopic disorder is controlled by fat-tailed distributions. We consider a fiber bundle model where the strength of single fibers is…
It is now possible to create perfect crystal nanowires of many metals. The deformation of such objects requires a good understanding of the processes involved in plasticity at the nanoscale. Isotropic compression of such nanometre scale…
The roughness properties of two-dimensional fracture surfaces as created by the slow failure of random fuse networks are considered and compared to yield surfaces of perfect plasticity with similar disorder. By studying systems up to a…
Avalanche-like plastic bursts in crystalline materials follow power law statistics, but the scaling exponents and cutoff parameters vary widely in the literature ($\alpha$ ranging from 1 to 2.2), hindering predictive modeling. Since…
We analyze intermittence and roughening of an elastic interface or domain wall pinned in a periodic potential, in the presence of random-bond disorder in (1+1) and (2+1) dimensions. Though the ensemble average behavior is smooth, the…
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…
During plastic deformation, metals change shape while continuously becoming stronger. The microscopic origin of these processes lies in the proliferation and movement of line defects, dislocations, and the subsequent self-organisation and…
The mechanical properties of polycrystalline metals are governed by the interaction of defects that are generated by deformation within the 3D microstructure. In materials that deform by slip, the plasticity is usually highly heterogeneous…
Power law distributed fluctuations are known to accompany \emph{terminal} failure in disordered brittle solids. The associated intermittent scale-free behavior is of interest from the fundamental point of view as it emerges universally from…
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…
Self-affine rough interfaces are ubiquitous in experimental systems, and display characteristic scaling properties as a signature of the nature of disorder in their supporting medium, i.e. of the statistical features of its heterogeneities.…
We study the existence of distinct failure regimes in a model for fracture in fibrous materials. We simulate a bundle of parallel fibers under uniaxial static load and observe two different failure regimes: a catastrophic and a slowly…
Ni-based superalloys have been the subject of enormous usage in scenarios where the loading is heavy and often occurs at elevated temperatures. The strengthening mechanisms that come into play within the metallic lattice have been studied…
Non-Newtonian fluids have a viscosity that varies with applied stress. Elastoviscoplastic fluids, the elastic, viscous and plastic properties of which are interconnected in a non-trivial way, belong to this category. We have performed…
Unlike macroscopic multistable mechanical systems such as snap bracelets or elastic shells that must be physically manipulated into various conformations, microscopic systems can undergo spontaneous conformation switching between…
Recent experimental observations have demonstrated interesting instability phenomenon during thermal drawing of microstructured glass/polymer fibers, and these observations motivate us to examine surface-tension-driven instabilities in…
Stress enhancement in the vicinity of brittle cracks makes the macro-scale failure properties extremely sensitive to the micro-scale material disorder. Therefore: (i) Fracturing systems often display a jerky dynamics, so-called crackling…
In spite of the apparent similarity of micro-branching instabilities in different brittle materials, we propose that the physics determining the typical length- and time-scales characterizing the post-instability patterns differ greatly…
Architected materials achieve unique mechanical properties through precisely engineered microstructures that minimize material usage. However, a key challenge of low-density materials is balancing high stiffness with stable deformability up…