Related papers: Enhanced fault-tolerance in biomimetic hierarchica…
Heterogeneous materials are often organized in a hierarchical manner, where a basic unit is repeated over multiple scales.The structure then acquires a self-similar pattern. Examples of such structure are found in various biological and…
Sacrificial bonds and hidden length (SBHL) in structural molecules provide a mechanism for energy dissipation at the nanoscale. It is hypothesized that their presence leads to greater fracture toughness than what is observed in materials…
Structural cellular materials in nature, such as wood, trabecular bone, corals, and dentin combine complex biological functions with structural roles, such as skeletal support and impact protection1,2. They feature complex structural…
We present a theory for the toughness, damage tolerance, and tensile strength of a class of hierarchical, fractal, metamaterials. We show that the even though the absolute toughness and damage tolerance decrease with increasing number of…
While crack nucleation and propagation in the brittle or quasi-brittle regime can be predicted via variational or material-force-based phase field fracture models, these models often assume that the underlying elastic response of the…
Hierarchically structured natural materials possess functionalities unattainable to the same components organized or mixed in simpler ways. For instance, the bones and teeth of mammals are far stronger and more durable than the mineral…
Nanoscale materials display enhanced strength and toughness but also larger fluctuations and more pronounced size effects with respect to their macroscopic counterparts. Here we study the system size-dependence of the failure strength…
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…
We study the fatigue fracture of disordered materials by means of computer simulations of a discrete element model. We extend a two-dimensional fracture model to capture the microscopic mechanisms relevant for fatigue, and we simulate the…
Crack initiation governs high cycle fatigue life and is susceptible to microstructural details. While corresponding microstructure-sensitive models are available, their validation is difficult. We propose a validation framework where a…
Nature has engineered complex designs to achieve advanced properties and functionalities through evolution, over millions of years. Many organisms have adapted to their living environment producing extremely efficient materials and…
Open cellular solids usually possess random microstructures that may contain a characteristic length scale, such as the cell size. This gives rise to size dependent mechanical properties where large systems behave differently from small…
We propose a new conceptual approach to reach unattained dissipative properties based on the friction of slender concentric sliding columns. We begin by searching for the optimal topology in the simplest telescopic system of two concentric…
In this paper, we study the response of 2D framed structures made of rectangular cells, to the sudden removal of columns. We employ a simulation algorithm based on the Discrete Element Method, where the structural elements are represented…
This study investigated, experimentally and numerically, the fracturing behavior of thermoset polymer structures featuring cracks and sharp u-notches. It is shown that, even for cases in which the sharpness of the notch would suggest…
Topologically interlocked materials and structures, which are assemblies of unbonded interlocking building blocks, are promising concepts for versatile structural applications. They have been shown to exhibit exceptional mechanical…
We discuss the relevance of methods of graph theory for the study of damage in simple model materials described by the random fuse model. While such methods are not commonly used when dealing with regular random lattices, which mimic…
Contact unit size reduction is a widely studied mechanism as a means to improve adhesion in natural fibrillar systems, such as those observed in beetles or geckos. However, these animals also display complex structural features in the way…
Designing strong and robust bio-inspired structures requires an understanding of how function arises from the architecture and geometry of materials found in nature. We draw from trabecular bone, a lightweight bone tissue that exhibits a…
Porous media with hierarchical structures are commonly encountered in both natural and synthetic materials, e.g., fractured rock formations, porous electrodes and fibrous materials, which generally consist of two or more distinguishable…