Related papers: Time dependent fracture under unloading in a fiber…
A field theory is presented for predicting damage and fracture in quasi-brittle materials. The approach taken here is new and blends a non-local constitutive law with a two-point phase field. In this formulation, the material displacement…
Heterogeneity in biological molecules, resulting in molecule-to-molecule variations in their dynamics and function, is an emerging theme. To elucidate the consequences of heterogeneous behavior at the single molecule level, we propose an…
We consider both analytical and numerical studies of a steady-state fracture process inside a discrete mass-beam structure, composed of periodically placed masses connected by Euler-Bernoulli beams. A fault inside the structure is assumed…
Electric power-systems are one of the most important critical infrastructures. In recent years, they have been exposed to extreme stress due to the increasing demand, the introduction of distributed renewable energy sources, and the…
A novel variational framework to model the fatigue behavior of brittle materials based on a phase-field approach to fracture is presented. The standard regularized free energy functional is modified introducing a fatigue degradation…
Combining simulations and theory I study the interplay between bundle elastic degrees of freedom and crosslink binding propensity. By slowly driving bundles into a deformed configuration, and depending on the mechanical stiffness of the…
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…
Brittle materials fail catastrophically. In consequence of their limited flaw-tolerance, failure occurs by localized fracture and is typically a dynamic process. Recently, experiments on epithelial cell monolayers have revealed that this…
We study the temporal evolution of avalanches in the fiber bundle model of disordered solids, when the model is gradually driven towards the critical breakdown point. We use two types of loading protocols: (i) the quasi-static loading, and…
We extend the model-free data-driven paradigm for rate-independent fracture mechanics proposed in Carrara et al. (2020), Data-driven Fracture Mechanics, Comp. Meth. App. Mech. Eng., 372 to rate-dependent fracture and sub-critical fatigue.…
Understanding the microstructural influence on the failure mechanisms in multi-phase materials calls for the identification of the worst-case scenario. This necessitates a statistical approach. By performing simulations directly based on…
Progressive damage, which eventually leads to failure, is ubiquitous in biological and synthetic polymers. The simplest case to consider is that of elastomeric materials, which can undergo large reversible deformations with negligible rate…
We study experimentally the slow growth of a single crack in a fibrous material and observe stepwise growth dynamics. We model the material as a lattice where the crack is pinned by elastic traps and grows due to thermally activated stress…
Crack nucleation is a ubiquitous phenomena during materials failure, because stress focuses on crack tips. It is known that exceptions to this general rule arise in the limit of strong disorder or vanishing mechanical stability, where…
The failure probabilities or the strength distributions of heterogeneous 1D systems with continuous local strength distribution and local load sharing have been studied using a simple, exact, recursive method. The fracture behavior depends…
The dynamics of a crack propagating in an elastic inhomogeneous material is investigated. The variations of the average crack velocity with the external loading are measured for a brittle rock and are shown to display two distinct regimes:…
Brain tissue is a heterogeneous material, constituted by a soft matrix filled with cerebrospinal fluid. The interactions between, and the complexity of each of these components are responsible for the non-linear rate-dependent behaviour…
The reliability of processes with moving elastic and isotropic material containing initial cracks is considered in terms of fracture. The material is modelled as a moving plate which is simply supported from two of its sides and subjected…
Network infrastructures are essential for the distribution of resources such as electricity and water. Typical strategies to assess their resilience focus on the impact of a sequence of random or targeted failures of network nodes or links.…
A random fuse network, or equivalently a two-dimensional spring network with quenched disorder, is subjected to a constant load and thermal noise, and studied by means of numerical simulations. Rupture is thermally activated and the…