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We consider the breakdown of conformal and scale invariance in random systems with strongly random critical points. Extending previous results on one-dimensional systems, we provide an example of a three-dimensional system which has a…
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…
We investigate the fracture process of a bundle of fibers with random Young modulus and a constant breaking strength. For two component systems we show that the strength of the mixture is always lower than the strength of the individual…
Understanding the phase behavior of mixtures with many components is important in many contexts, including as a key step toward a physics-based description of intracellular compartmentalization. Here, we study the instabilities of a mixture…
Using the recent incremental modelling, it is shown that the trajectory of a sample in the phase space of soil mechanics in the vicinity of the critical state is not governed by the rigidity matrix, but by its variations. The…
A binary liquid near its consolute point exhibits critical fluctuations of the local composition; the diverging correlation length has always challenged simulations. The method of choice for the calculation of critical points in the phase…
We study the approach to global breakdown in disordered media driven by increasing external forces. We first analyze the problem by mean-field theory, showing that the failure process can be described as a first-order phase transition,…
We investigate relationships between statistics obtained from filtering and from ensemble or Reynolds-averaging turbulence flow fields as a function of length scale. Generalized central moments in the filtering approach are expressed as…
It is well known that the increase of the spatial dimensionality enhances the fluid-fluid demixing of a binary mixture of hard hyperspheres, i.e. the demixing occurs for lower mixture size asymmetry as compared to the three-dimensional…
We combine an analytically solvable mean-field elasto-plastic model with molecular dynamics simulations of a generic glass-former to demonstrate that, depending on their preparation protocol, amorphous materials can yield in two…
The relevant parameters at the microstructure scale that govern the macroscopic toughness of disordered brittle materials are investigated theoretically. We focus on planar crack propagation and describe the front evolution as the…
We analyze the failure process of a two-component system with widely different fracture strength in the framework of a fiber bundle model with localized load sharing. A fraction 0\leq \alpha \leq 1 of the bundle is strong and it is…
We study bridging transitions between spherically and cylindrically shaped particles (colloids) of radius $R$ separated by a distance $H$ that are dissolved in a bulk fluid (solvent). Using macroscopics, microscopic density functional…
The dynamics of supercritical fluids, a state of matter beyond the gas-liquid critical point, changes from diffusive to oscillatory motions at high pressure. This transition is believed to occur across a locus of thermodynamic states called…
The failure of brittle solids involves, before macroscopic rupture, power-law distributed avalanches of local rupture events whereby microcracks nucleate and grow, which are also observed in for an elastic interface evolving in a…
Laboratory earthquakes exhibit characteristics of a low dimensional random attractor with a dimension similar to that of natural slow earthquakes. A model of stochastic differential equations based on rate and state-dependent friction…
We present an experimental study of density and order fluctuations in the vicinity of the solid-liquid-like transition that occurs in a vibrated quasi-two-dimensional granular system. The two-dimensional projected static and dynamic…
Continuum mechanics describes compressive failure as a standard bifurcation in the response of a material to an increasing load: damage, which initially grows uniformly in the material, localizes within a thin band at failure. Yet,…
As global ocean general circulation models are run at eddy-permitting resolutions, reproducing accurate growth rates of baroclinic instabilities is a major concern when choosing a discretization of the equations of motion. From this…
The possible paralelism existing between phase transitions and fracture in disordered materials, is discussed using the well-known Fiber Bundle Models and a probabilistic approach suited to smooth fluctuations near the critical point. Two…