Related papers: De-localizing brittle fracture
Combinatorial mechanical metamaterials are made of anisotropic, flexible blocks, such that multiple metamaterials may be constructed using a single block type, and the system's response depends on the frustration (or its absence) due to the…
In this paper we derive a new two-dimensional brittle fracture model for thin shells via dimension reduction, where the admissible displacements are only normal to the shell surface. The main steps include to endow the shell with a small…
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…
Neutron irradiation in structural alloys promotes defect clustering, which suppresses plasticity and triggers a ductile-to-brittle transition (DBT), a key degradation mechanism limiting fracture resistance in nuclear materials. This study…
Mechanical metamaterials present a promising platform for seemingly impossible mechanics. They often require incompatibility of their elementary building blocks, yet a comprehensive understanding of its role remains elusive. Relying on an…
When brittle hydrogels fail, several mechanisms conspire to alter the state of stress near the tip of a crack, and it is challenging to identify which mechanism is dominant. In the fracture of brittle solids, a sufficient far-field stress…
We argue that nucleation of brittle cracks in initially flawless soft elastic solids is preceded by a nonlinear elastic instability, which cannot be captured without accounting for geometrical precise description of finite elastic…
Architecting mechanisms of damage in metamaterials by leveraging lattice topology and geometry poses a vital yet complex challenge, essential for engineering desirable mechanical responses. Of these metamaterials, Maxwell lattices, which…
In spite of the apparent similarity of micro-branching instabilities in different brittle materials, we propose that the physics determining the typical length- and time-scales characterizing the post-instability patterns differ greatly…
In this letter we address the fragmentation of thin, brittle layers due to the impact of high-velocity projectiles. Our approach is a geometric statistical one, with lines and circles playing the role of cracks, randomly distributed over…
The lifetime and performance of any engineering component, from nanoscale sensors to macroscopic structures, are strongly influenced by fracture processes. Fracture itself is a highly localized event; originating at the atomic scale by bond…
We consider a plate made from an isotropic but brittle elastic material, which is used to span a rigid aperture, across which a small pressure difference is applied. The problem we address is to find the structure which uses the least…
Numerical simulations of concrete fracture performed with a probabilistic mesoscale discrete model are presented. The model represents a substantial part of material randomness by assigning random locations to the largest aggregates. The…
Crackling dynamics is characterized by a release of incoming energy through intermittent avalanches. The shape, i.e. the internal temporal structure of these avalanches, gives insightful information about the physical processes involved. It…
We present a unified theory of fracture in disordered brittle media that reconciles apparently conflicting results reported in the literature. Our renormalization group based approach yields a phase diagram in which the percolation fixed…
The brittle fragmentation of spheres is studied numerically by a 3D Discrete Element Model. Large scale computer simulations are performed with models that consist of agglomerates of many spherical particles, interconnected by beam-truss…
Unstable growth of cracks (rough crack surface and crack branching) in dynamic fracture has long been observed in various materials. Until now, there was no universally agreed upon explanation for these instabilities. Here, we demonstrate…
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…
A structural element is designed and investigated, forming the basis for the development of an elastic multistable metamaterial. The leitmotif of the structural design is the implementation of a strut characterized by a bifurcation…
Dynamic crack propagation drives catastrophic solid failures. In many amorphous brittle materials, sufficiently fast crack growth involves small-scale, high-frequency microcracking damage localized near the crack tip. The ultra-fast…