Related papers: Universality and stability phase-diagram of two-di…
Recent theoretical and computational progress has led to unprecedented understanding of symmetry-breaking instabilities in 2D dynamic fracture. At the heart of this progress resides the identification of two intrinsic, near crack tip length…
Cracks, the major vehicle for material failure, tend to accelerate to high velocities in brittle materials. In three-dimensions, cracks generically undergo a micro-branching instability at about 40% of their sonic limiting velocity. Recent…
The stability of a rapid dynamic crack in a two dimensional infinite strip is studied in the framework of Linear Elasticity Fracture Mechanics supplemented with a modified principle of local symmetry. It is predicted that a single crack…
Cracks in soft materials exhibit diverse dynamic patterns, involving straight, oscillation, branching, and supershear fracture. Here, we successfully reproduce these crack morphologies in a two-dimensional pre-strained fracture scenario and…
The morphology of fracture surfaces encodes the various complex damage and fracture processes occurring at the microstructure scale that have lead to the failure of a given heterogeneous material. Understanding how to decipher this…
We argue that nucleation of brittle cracks in initially flawless soft elastic solids is preceded by a nonlinear elastic instability, which cannot be captured without accounting for geometrical precise description of finite elastic…
This paper demonstrates that rapid fracture of ideal brittle lattices naturally involves phenomena long seen in experiment, but which have been hard to understand from a continuum point of view. These idealized models do not mimic realistic…
Unstable growth of cracks (rough crack surface and crack branching) in dynamic fracture has long been observed in various materials. Until now, there was no universally agreed upon explanation for these instabilities. Here, we demonstrate…
A phase field model of a crack front propagating in a three dimensional brittle material is used to study the fractographic patterns induced by the branching instability. The numerical results of this model give rise to crack surfaces that…
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…
Crack propagation is studied numerically using a continuum phase-field approach to mode III brittle fracture. The results shed light on the physics that controls the speed of accelerating cracks and the characteristic branching instability…
We propose a theoretical model for branching instabilities in 2-dimensional fracture, offering predictions for when crack branching occurs, how multiple cracks develop, and what is the geometry of multiple branches. The model is based on…
When branching is suppressed, rapid cracks undergo a dynamic instability from a straight to an oscillatory path at a critical velocity $v_c$. In a systematic experimental study using a wide range of different brittle materials, we first…
We investigate phase-field modeling of brittle fracture in a one-dimensional bar featuring a continuous variation of elastic and/or fracture properties along its axis. Our main goal is to quantitatively assess how the heterogeneity in…
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…
A minimal model is constructed for two-dimensional fracture propagation. The heterogeneous process zone is presumed to suppress stress relaxation rate, leading to non-quasistatic behavior. Using the Yoffe solution, I construct and solve a…
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…
A continuum model of fracture that describes, in principle, the propagation and interaction of arbitrary distributions of cracks and voids with evolving topology without a fracture criterion is developed. It involves a 'law of motion' for…
We study the dynamics of cracks in brittle materials when the velocity of the crack is comparable to the sound velocity by means of lattice simulations. Inertial and damped dynamics are analyzed. It is shown that dissipation strongly…
We have found an oscillating instability of fast-running cracks in thin rubber sheets. A well-defined transition from straight to oscillating cracks occurs as the amount of biaxial strain increases. Measurements of the amplitude and…