Related papers: Progressive damage and rupture in polymers
The structural properties of a linear polymer and its evolution in time have a strong bearing on its anisotropic stress response. The mean-square bond length and mean bond angle are the critical parameters that influence the time-varying…
A polycrystalline solid is modelled as an ensemble of random irregular polyhedra filling the entire space occupied by the solid body, leaving no voids or flaws between them. Adjacent grains can slide with a relative velocity proportional to…
Over the last half-century, linear viscoelastic models for crack growth in soft solids have flourished but their predictions have rarely been compared to experiments. In fact, most available models are either very approximate or cast in…
This paper deals with the mathematical modelling of large strain electro-viscoelastic deformations in electro-active polymers. Energy dissipation is assumed to occur due to mechanical viscoelasticity of the polymer as well as due to…
The failure of materials and interfaces is mediated by cracks, nearly singular dissipative structures that propagate at velocities approaching the speed of sound. Crack initiation and subsequent propagation -- the dynamic process of…
We present a continuum model for the propagation of cracks and fractures in brittle materials. The components of the strain tensor $\epsilon$ are the fundamental variables. The evolution equations are based on a free energy that reduces to…
Fatigue fracture is one of the main causes of failure in structures. However, the simulation of fatigue crack growth is computationally demanding due to the large number of load cycles involved. Metals in the low cycle fatigue range often…
We have designed a new experimental setup able to investigate fracture of soft materials at small scales. At high crack velocity, where energy is mostly dissipated through viscoelastic processes, we observe an increasingly large high strain…
We consider the thermal breakage of a tethered polymer chain of discrete segments coupled by Morse potentials under constant tensile stress. The chain dynamics at the onset of fracture is studied analytically by Kramers-Langer…
We consider materials whose mechanical integrity is the result of a jamming process. We argue that such media are generically "fragile": unable to support certain types of incremental loading without plastic rearrangement. Fragility is…
Cavitation is a common damage mechanism in soft solids. Here, we study this using a phase-separation technique in stretched, elastic solids to controllably nucleate and grow small cavities by several orders of magnitude. The ability to make…
This paper presents a framework for modeling failure in quasi-brittle geomaterials under different loading conditions. A micromechanics-based model is proposed in which the field variables are linked to physical mechanisms at the microcrack…
Elastomers saturated with gas at high pressure suffer from cavity nucleation, inflation, and deflation upon rapid or explosive de-compression. Although this process often results in undetectable changes in appearance, it causes internal…
The most important characteristics of the fragmentation of heterogeneous solids is that the mass (size) distribution of pieces is described by a power law functional form. The exponent of the distribution displays a high degree of…
In this paper, we study the progressive collapse of 3D framed structures made of reinforced concrete after the sudden loss of a column. The structures are represented by elasto-plastic Euler Bernoulli beams with elongation-rotation failure…
Disorder and long-range interactions are two of the key components that make material failure an interesting playfield for the application of statistical mechanics. The cornerstone in this respect has been lattice models of the fracture in…
We extend classical Flory-Rehner theory for the expansion and compression of porous materials such as cross-linked polymer networks. The theory includes volume exclusion, affinity with the solvent, and finite stretching of the polymer…
A continuum model of crack propagation is presented and discussed. We obtain steady state solutions with a self-consistently selected propagation velocity and shape of the crack, provided that elastodynamic and viscoelastic effects are…
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…
The paper addresses the underlying source of two forms of induced anisotropy in granular materials: contact orientation anisotropy and contact force anisotropy. A rational, mathematical structure is reviewed for the manner in which fabric…