Related papers: Nonlinear focusing in dynamic crack fronts and the…
In fracture mechanics, polyacrylamide hydrogels have been widely used as a model material for experiments, benefited from its optical transparency, fracture brittleness, and low Rayleigh wave velocity. To describe the brittle fracture in…
An analytical study on crease formations in a swelling gel layer is conducted. By exploring the smallness of the layer thickness and using a method of coupled series-asymptotic expansions, the original nonlinear eigenvalue problem of…
We propose an elasto-plastic inspired friction model which incorporates interfacial stiffness. Steady state sliding friction is characterized by a generic nonmonotonic behavior, including both velocity weakening and strengthening branches.…
The problem of finding what direction cracks should move is not completely solved. A commonly accepted way to predict crack directions is by computing the density of elastic potential energy stored well away from the crack tip, and finding…
We approach the problem of heterogeneous dynamic fracture by considering spatiotemporal perturbations to planar crack fronts. Front propagation is governed by local energy balance between the elastic energy per unit area available to…
We have studied the propagation of a crack front along the heterogeneous weak plane of a transparent poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) block using two different loading conditions: imposed constant velocity and creep relaxation. We have…
The two-dimensional oscillatory crack instability, experimentally observed in a class of brittle materials under strongly dynamic conditions, has been recently reproduced by a nonlinear phase-field fracture theory. Here we highlight the…
Brittle fracturing of materials is common in natural and industrial processes over a variety of length scales. Knowledge of individual particle dynamics is vital to obtain deeper insight into the atomistic processes governing crack…
Crack fronts deform due to heterogeneities, and inspecting these deformations can reveal local variations of material properties, and help predict out of plane damage. Current models neglect the influence of a finite dissipation…
Elastic strips provide a canonical system for studying the mechanisms governing elastic shape transitions. Buckling, linear snap-through, and nonlinear snap-through have been observed in boundary-actuated strips and linked to the type of…
Mixed mode (I+III) loading induces segmented crack front \'echelon structures connected by steps. We study this instability in a highly deformable, strain-hardening material. We find that \'echelons develop beyond a finite, size-independent…
Brittle materials exhibit sharp dynamical fractures when meeting Griffith's criterion, whereas ductile materials blunt a sharp crack by plastic responses. Upon continuous pulling ductile materials exhibit a necking instability which is…
Initially straight slender elastic rods with geometrically constrained ends buckle and form stable two-dimensional shapes when compressed by bringing the ends together. It is also known that beyond a critical value of the pre-stress,…
Dynamic fracture experiments were performed in PMMA over a wide range of velocities and reveal that the fracture energy exhibits an abrupt 3-folds increase from its value at crack initiation at a well-defined critical velocity, below the…
We use molecular dynamics to show that plastic slip is a crucial component of the transformation mechanism of a square-to-triangular structural transition. The latter is a stylized analog of many other reconstructive phase transitions. To…
Mode-I fracture exhibits microbranching in the high velocity regime where the simple straight crack is unstable. For velocities below the instability, classic modeling using linear elasticity is valid. However, showing the existence of the…
We generalize lattice models of brittle fracture to arbitrary nonlinear force laws and study the existence of arrested semi-infinite cracks. Unlike what is seen in the discontinuous case studied to date, the range in driving displacement…
Stochastic models for the development of cracks in 1 and 2 dimensional objects are presented. In one dimension, we focus on particular scenarios for interacting and non-interacting fragments during the breakup process. For two dimensional…
The behavior of microgels near surfaces and their adsorption is studied by simple scaling theory. Two different types of microgels can be studied, i.e., fractal type microgels and randomly crosslinked polymer chains. In the first case the…
Predicting crack trajectories in brittle solids remains an open challenge in fracture mechanics due to the non-local nature of crack propagation and the way cracks modify their surrounding medium. Here, we develop a framework for…