Related papers: De-localizing brittle fracture
Soft polymers are ubiquitous materials in nature and as engineering materials with properties varying from rate-independent to rate-dependent. Current fracture toughness measures are non-unique for rate-dependent soft materials for varying…
Dislocations play a key role in the understanding of many phenomena in solid state physics, materials science, crystallography and engineering. Dislocations are line defects producing distortions and self-stresses in an otherwise perfect…
We present experiments on the dynamic buckling and fragmentation of slender rods axially impacted by a projectile. By combining the results of Saint-Venant and elastic beam theory, we derive a preferred wavelength lambda for the buckling…
Architected materials can exhibit remarkable combinations of stiffness, strength, and toughness, yet their application is currently limited by an incomplete understanding of how cracks initiate and propagate through their discrete…
Fracture involves interaction across large and small length scales. With the application of enough stress or strain to a brittle material, atomistic scale bonds will break, leading to fracture of the macroscopic specimen. From the…
Stiffness degradation and progressive failure of composite laminates are complex processes involving evolution and multi-mode interactions among fiber fractures, intra-ply matrix cracks and inter-ply delaminations. This paper presents a…
Energy dissipation by fast crystalline defects takes place mainly through the resonant interaction of their cores with periodic lattice. We show that the resultant effective friction can be reduced to zero by appropriately tuned acoustic…
Refractory body-centered cubic (BCC) metals and alloys are of extraordinary importance in modern technological and structural applications. However, their wider adoption in science and technology is severely restricted by low-temperature…
From cell development to space rockets, the mechanical stability of thin shells is crucial across many industrial and natural processes. However, predicting shells' failure properties remains an open challenge, owing to their sensitivity to…
Mechanical metamaterials are engineered materials that gain their remarkable mechanical properties, such as negative Poisson's ratios, negative compressibility, phononic bandgaps, and topological phonon modes, from their structure rather…
Exploiting the framework of peridynamics, a dimensionally-reduced plate formulation is developed that allows for the through-thickness nucleation and growth of fracture surfaces, enabling the treatment of delamination in a lower-dimensional…
Variable stiffness is a key capability in biological and robotic systems, enabling adaptive interaction across tasks and environments. Mechanical metamaterials offer an alternative to conventional mechatronic solutions by encoding stiffness…
Auxetic metamaterials are commonly thought to exhibit favorable mechanical properties, notably high energy absorption. Here we investigate disordered metamaterials obtained from random beam networks by optimizing simultaneously auxeticity…
The deformation of rocks is associated with microcracks nucleation and propagation, i.e. damage. The accumulation of damage and its spatial localization lead to the creation of a macroscale discontinuity, so-called "fault" in geological…
We show that for the simulation of crack propagation in quasi-brittle, two-dimensional solids, very good results can be obtained with an embedded strong discontinuity quadrilateral finite element that has incompatible modes. Even more…
Exotic behaviour of mechanical metamaterials often relies on an internal transformation of the underlying microstructure triggered by its local instabilities, rearrangements, and rotations. Depending on the presence and magnitude of such a…
We investigate how material rigidity acts as a key control parameter for the failure of solids under stress. In both experiments and simulations, we demonstrate that material failure can be continuously tuned by varying the underlying…
Fracture limits the structural stability of macroscopic and microscopic materials, from beams and bones to microtubules and nanotubes. Despite recent progress, fracture control continues to present profound practical and theoretical…
As we enter the age of designer matter - where objects can morph and change shape on command - what tools do we need to create shape-shifting structures? At the heart of an elastic deformation is the combination of dilation and distortion,…
A hybrid scheme between large-scale electronic structure calculations is developed and applied to nanocrystalline silicon with more than 10$^5$ atoms. Dynamical fracture processes are simulated under external loads in the [001] direction.…