Related papers: Fracture mechanical behavior of polymers: 1. Amorp…
The structural properties of a linear polymer and its evolution in time have a strong bearing on its anisotropic stress response. The mean-square bond length and mean bond angle are the critical parameters that influence the time-varying…
By taking advantage of the molecular weight dependence of the glass transition of polymers and their ability to form perfectly miscible blends, we propose a way to modify the fragility of a system, from fragile to strong, keeping the same…
The onset of nonlinear effects in metals, such as plasticity and damage, is strongly influenced by the heterogeneous stress distribution at the grain level. This work is devoted to studying the local stress distribution of shear stresses…
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…
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:…
In a previous paper (Leblond et al., 2011), we proposed a theoretical interpretation of the experimentally well known instability of coplanar crack propagation in mode I+III. The interpretation relied on a stability analysis based on…
This work proposes an investigation on the fracturing behavior of polymer nanocomposites. Towards this end, the study leverages on the analysis of a large bulk of fracture tests from the literature with the goal of critically investigating…
Understanding, predicting and eventually improving the resistance to fracture of silicate materials is of primary importance to design new glasses that would be tougher, while retaining their transparency. However, the atomic mechanism of…
The strength, $\sigma_{\rm y}$, of a polycrystal decreases with mean grain diameter $D$ at $D\gtrsim50$ atoms (i.e. Hall-Petch behaviour) and increases at $D\lesssim50$ (i.e. inverse Hall-Petch behaviour). Our simulations generalise…
We study experimentally the slow growth of a single crack in a fibrous material and observe stepwise growth dynamics. We model the material as a lattice where the crack is pinned by elastic traps and grows due to thermally activated stress…
The glassy dynamics of dense active matter have recently become a topic of interest due to their importance in biological processes such as wound healing and tissue development. However, while the liquid-state properties of dense active…
We describe an apparatus for performing constant strain rate deformations of polymer glasses while simultaneously measuring the segmental mobility with an optical probe reorientation method. Poly(methyl methacrylate) glasses were deformed…
The fracture and severing of polymer chains plays a critical role in the failure of fibrous materials and the regulated turnover of intracellular filaments. Using continuum wormlike chain models, we investigate the fracture of semiflexible…
The fracture of materials is a catastrophic phenomenon of considerable technological and scientific importance. Here, we analysed experiments designed for industrial applications in order to test the concept that, in heterogeneous materials…
The close packing density of log-normal and bimodal distributed, surface-adsorbed particles or discs in 2D is studied by numerical simulation. For small spread in particle size, the system orders in a polycrystalline structure of hexagonal…
Local segmental relaxation properties of poly(methylmethacrylate) (PMMA) of varying molecular weight are measured by dielectric spectroscopy, and analyzed in combination the equation of state obtained from PVT measurements. The usual…
Brush-like structures emerge from stretching of long polymer chains, densely grafted on to the surface of an impermeable substrate. They arise due to the competition between conformational entropic elasticity of polymer chains and excluded…
We examine the fracture mechanics of tearing graphene. We present a molecular dynamics simulation of the propagation of cracks in clamped, free-standing graphene as a function of the out-of-plane force. The geometry is motivated by…
The effects of elasticity on filament thinning and breakup are investigated in microchannel cross flow. When a viscous solution is stretched by an external immiscible fluid, a low 100 ppm polymer concentration strongly affects the breakup…
In this work we present the design of a new test geometry inspired by the Tapered Double Cantilever Beam (TDCB) specimen that is shown to provide an improved characterization of the fracture properties of brittle solids. First, we show that…