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We investigate the role of architected thin films in the interfacial failure properties of bi-layer composites. Our results show that, while graded structures can be used to prescribe failure at the interface, they do not offer significant…
Cortical thickness measurements from magnetic resonance imaging, an important biomarker in many neurodegenerative and neurological disorders, are derived by many tools from an initial voxel-wise tissue segmentation. White matter (WM)…
Elastomers are used in a wide range of applications because of their large strain to failure, low density, and tailorable stiffness and toughness. The mechanical behavior of elastomers derives mainly from the entropic elasticity of the…
We examine the thermally-induced fracture of an unstrained polymer chain of discrete segments coupled by an anharmonic potential by means of Molecular Dynamics simulation with a Langevin thermostat. Cases of both under- and over-damped…
High-strain-rate shear tests were conducted on a three-layered bonded test piece comprising a central aluminum layer with PMMA resin layers bonded on both sides. Upon calculating the displacement field and the strain field using digital…
In this paper, we propose an eXtended Virtual Element Method (X-VEM) for two-dimensional linear elastic fracture. This approach, which is an extension of the standard Virtual Element Method (VEM), facilitates mesh-independent modeling of…
Understanding fluctuation-induced breakages in polymers has important implications for basic and applied sciences. Here I present for the first time an analytical treatment of the thermal breakage problem of a semi-flexible polymer model…
Soft adhesive contacts are ubiquitous in nature and are increasingly used in synthetic systems, such as flexible electronics and soft robots, due to their advantages over traditional joining techniques. While methods to study the failure of…
Analytical models have been developed for fracture propagation over the last several decades and are now considered with renewed interest; the range of their applicability varies for different materials and different loading conditions.…
Crack fronts deform due to heterogeneities, and inspecting these deformations can reveal local variations of material properties, and help predict out of plane damage. Current models neglect the influence of a finite dissipation…
A phase-field description of brittle fracture is employed in the reported four-point bending analyses of monolithic and laminated glass plates. Our aims are: (i) to compare different phase-field fracture formulations applied to thin glass…
Motivated by recent advances in single molecule manipulation techniques that enabled several groups to tie knots in individual polymer strands and to monitor their dynamics, we have used computer simulations to study "friction knots"…
The elasticity of disordered and polydisperse polymer networks is a fundamental problem of soft matter physics that is still open. Here, we self-assemble polymer networks via simulations of a mixture of bivalent and tri- or tetravalent…
The phase field fracture method has emerged as a promising computational tool for modelling a variety of problems including, since recently, hydrogen embrittlement and stress corrosion cracking. In this work, we demonstrate the potential of…
In this article we present the numerical simulation of a dislocation incorporated into a Cosserat plate. The simulation is based on the mathematical model for bending of Cosserat elastic plates recently developed by the authors. The…
We investigate the weakening of elastic materials through randomly distributed circles and cracks numerically and compare the results to predictions from homogenization theories. We find a good agreement for the case of randomly oriented…
We consider the thermal breakage of a tethered polymer chain of discrete segments coupled by Morse potentials under constant tensile stress. The chain dynamics at the onset of fracture is studied analytically by Kramers-Langer…
We carry out uniaxial continuous and step stretching of various crosslinked polymer networks to demonstrate how characteristics of rupture (from continuous stretching) and delayed rupture (from step stretching) can be used to probe the…
This paper addresses the modeling of fracture in quasi-brittle materials using a phase-field approach to the description of crack topology. Within the computational mechanics community, several studies have treated the issue of modeling…
The bonding pattern of a covalent semiconductor is disrupted when a surface is cut while keeping a rigid (truncated bulk) geometry. The covalent bonds are partly reformed (with a sizeable energy gain) when reconstruction is allowed. We show…