Related papers: How super-tough gels break
When a corrosive solution reaches the limits of a solid sample, a chemical fracture occurs. An analytical theory for the probability of this chemical fracture is proposed and confirmed by extensive numerical experiments on a two dimensional…
Polymer gels behave as soft viscoelastic solids and exhibit a generic nonlinear mechanical response characterized by pronounced stiffening prior to irreversible failure, most often through macroscopic fractures. Here, we aim at capturing…
Mechanical metamaterials with engineered failure properties typically rely on periodic unit cell geometries or bespoke microstructures to achieve their unique properties. We demonstrate that intelligent use of disorder in metamaterials…
Soft polymers are ubiquitous materials in nature and as engineering materials with properties varying from rate-independent to rate-dependent. Current fracture toughness measures are non-unique for rate-dependent soft materials for varying…
We study how the loading rate, specimen geometry and microstructural texture select the dynamics of a crack moving through an heterogeneous elastic material in the quasi-static approximation. We find a transition, fully controlled by two…
Strong and conductive carbon nanotube films are ideal candidates for lightning-strike protection. Understanding their failure mechanisms by considering the anisotropic and single-fiber nature is essential to improve performance. Our…
Graphene nanowiggles (GNW) are graphene-based nanostructures obtained by making alternated regular cuts in pristine graphene nanoribbons. GNW were recently synthesized and it was demonstrated that they exhibit tunable electronic and…
The fracture energy of brittle materials rises with crack velocity, and this effect is typically attributed to surface roughening from path instabilities. Here we show, using molecular dynamics simulations of silica glass with a…
This paper investigates hydraulic fracture in a media with periodic heterogeneous toughness. Results for the plane-strain (KGD) model are analysed. The energy distribution as the fracture propagates is examined, along with the evolution of…
Brittle materials subjected to thermal shocks experience strong temperature gradients that in turn give rise to mechanical stresses that can be large enough to induce fracture. This work presents a complete model for phase-field fracture…
We obtain the Paris law of fatigue crack propagation in a disordered solid using a fuse network model where the accumulated damage in each resistor increases with time as a power law of the local current amplitude. When a resistor reaches…
Graphene, one of the strongest materials ever discovered, triggered the exploration of many 2D materials in the last decade. However, the successful synthesis of a stable nanomaterial requires a rudimentary understanding of the relationship…
Nanoscale materials display enhanced strength and toughness but also larger fluctuations and more pronounced size effects with respect to their macroscopic counterparts. Here we study the system size-dependence of the failure strength…
This paper presents two main results. The first result indicates that in materials with broadly distributed microscopic heterogeneities, the fracture strength distribution corresponding to the peak load of the material response does not…
The problem of diffusive bond-dissociation in a double well potential under application of an external force is scrutinized. We compute the probability distribution of rupture forces and present a detailed discussion of the influence of…
This paper rigorously analyzes bond failure in the peridynamic theory of solid mechanics, which is a fundamental component of fracture modeling. We compare analytically and numerically two common bond-failure criteria:~{\em critical…
We investigate the fragmentation process of solid materials with crystalline and amorphous phases using the discrete element method. Damage initiates inside spherical samples above the contact zone in a region where the circumferential…
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…
Rapid progress in additive manufacturing methods has created a new class of ultralight and strong architected metamaterials that resemble periodic truss structures. The mechanical performance of these metamaterials with a very large number…
Attractive colloidal particles can form a disordered elastic solid or gel when quenched into a two-phase region, if the volume fraction is sufficiently large. When the interactions are comparable to thermal energies the stress-bearing…