Related papers: How super-tough gels break
Biomaterials such as protein or polysaccharide gels are known to behave qualitatively as soft solids and to rupture under an external load. Combining optical and ultrasonic imaging to shear rheology we show that the failure scenario of a…
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 have carried out systematic fracture experiments in a single edge notch geometry over a range of stretch rates on dual crosslink hydrogels made from polyvinyl alcohol chains chemically crosslinked with glutaraldehyde and physically…
A liquid droplet resting on a soft gel substrate can deform that substrate to the point of material failure, whereby fractures develop on the gel surface that propagate outwards from the contact-line in a starburst pattern. In this paper,…
Tunable mechanics and fracture resistance are hallmarks of biological tissues and highly desired in engineered materials. To elucidate the underlying mechanisms, we study a rigidly percolating double network (DN) made of a stiff and a…
To clarify effects of crack speed and cross-link density on fracture energy of acrylamide gels, we evaluated the roughness of the fracture surface and measured the fracture energy taking into account the roughness. The fracture energy…
Highly-deformable materials, from synthetic hydrogels to biological tissues, are becoming increasingly important from both fundamental and practical perspectives. Their mechanical behaviors, in particular the dynamics of crack propagation…
In this paper, we'll answer several abstract, formal questions about the nature of crack growth and nucleation. Bringing a field theory point of view to fracture illuminates things in what I hope will be an entertaining way. Formally, what…
In our previous paper (Eur. Phys. J. E 4, 121 (2001)) we proposed a coarse-grained elastic energy for nacre, or stratified structure of hard and soft layers. We then analyzed a crack running perpendicular to the layers and suggested one…
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…
Soft materials may break irreversibly upon applying sufficiently large shear oscillations, a process which physical mechanism remains largely elusive. In this work, the rupture of protein gels made of sodium caseinate under an oscillatory…
The full 2D analysis of roughness profiles of fracture surfaces resulting from quasi-static crack propagation in gelatin gels reveals an original behavior characterized by (i) strong anisotropy with maximum roughness at $V$-independent…
Hydrogels have had a profound impact in the fields of tissue engineering, drug delivery, and materials science as a whole. Due to the network architecture of these materials, imbibement with water often results in uniform swelling and…
The fracture of highly deformable soft materials is of great practical importance in a wide range of technological applications, emerging in fields such as soft robotics, stretchable electronics and tissue engineering. From a basic physics…
Capturing the dynamics of granular flows at intermediate length scales can often be difficult. We propose studying the dynamics of contact networks as a new tool to study fracture at intermediate scales. Using experimental three-dimensional…
We present an extensive experimental study of mode-I, steady, slow crack dynamics in gelatin gels. Taking advantage of the sensitivity of the elastic stiffness to gel composition and history we confirm and extend the model for fracture of…
Breakage is generally understood in mechanical terms, yet nano-structures can rupture not only under external loads but also via thermal activation. Here we treat in a general framework the statistical mechanics of thermally induced…
The accurate measurement of fracture resistance in elastomers is essential for predicting the mechanical limits of soft devices. Usually, this is achieved by performing tearing or peeling experiments on thin-sheet samples. Here, we show…
The resistance to fracture of reversible biopolymer hydrogels is an important control factor of the cutting/slicing and eating characteristics of food gels. It is also critical for their utilization in tissue engineering, for which…
We study at the laboratory scale the rupture of thin floating sheets made of a brittle material under a wave-induced mechanical forcing. We show that the rupture occurs where the curvature is maximum and the break-up threshold strongly…