Related papers: A possible link between brittle and ductile failur…
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:…
A dynamic crack will travel in a straight path up to a material-dependent critical speed beyond which its path becomes erratic. Predicting this critical speed and discovering the origin of this instability are two outstanding problems in…
Crack growth is the basic mechanism leading to the failure of brittle materials. Engineering addresses this problem within the framework of continuum mechanics, which links deterministically the crack motion to the applied loading. Such an…
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 phase-field approach to fracture has been proven to be a mathematically sound and easy to implement method for computing crack propagation with arbitrary crack paths. Hereby crack growth is driven by energy minimization resulting in a…
The failure of frictional interfaces -- the process of frictional rupture -- is widely assumed to feature crack-like properties, with far-reaching implications for various disciplines, ranging from engineering tribology to earthquake…
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…
Recently proposed phase-field models offer self-consistent descriptions of brittle fracture. Here, we analyze these theories in the quasistatic regime of crack propagation. We show how to derive the laws of crack motion either by using…
Fracture is a fundamental mechanism of materials failure. Propagating cracks can exhibit a rich dynamical behavior controlled by a subtle interplay between microscopic failure processes in the crack tip region and macroscopic elasticity. We…
This paper presents a framework for modeling failure in quasi-brittle geomaterials under different loading conditions. A micromechanics-based model is proposed in which the field variables are linked to physical mechanisms at the microcrack…
Fracture growth in a material is strongly influenced by the presence of inhomogeneities, which deviate crack trajectories from rectilinearity and deeply affect failure. Increasing crack tortuosity is connected to enhancement of fracture…
The enforcement of global energy conservation in phase-field fracture simulations has been an open problem for the last 25 years. Specifically, the occurrence of unstable fracture is accompanied by a loss in total potential energy, which…
We present a continuum model for the propagation of cracks and fractures in brittle materials. The components of the strain tensor $\epsilon$ are the fundamental variables. The evolution equations are based on a free energy that reduces to…
Important physical observations in rupture dynamics such as static fault friction, short-slip, self-healing, and supershear phenomenon in cracks are studied. A continuum model of rupture dynamics is developed using the field dislocation…
The failure of materials and interfaces is mediated by cracks, nearly singular dissipative structures that propagate at velocities approaching the speed of sound. Crack initiation and subsequent propagation -- the dynamic process of…
Fracture of materials with rate-dependent mechanical behaviour, e.g. polymers, is a highly complex process. For an adequate modelling, the coupling between rate-dependent stiffness, dissipative mechanisms present in the bulk material and…
We present a model for the thermally activated propagation of cracks in elastic matrices. The propagation is considered as a subcritical phenomenon, the kinetics of which being described by an Arrhenius law. In this law, we take the thermal…
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 chemically reactive environments, the mechanical integrity of geomaterials is fundamentally compromised by solid matrix dissolution. In this study, we propose a fully coupled chemo-mechanical phase-field framework to capture the dynamic…
Over the past seven years, full-field analyses of a wide range of classical as well as modern quasi-static fracture experiments on nominally elastic brittle materials -- ranging from hard ceramics to soft elastomers -- have repeatedly…