Related papers: Nucleation and development of multiple cracks in t…
We formulate a theoretical model of the shear failure of a thin film tethered to a rigid substrate. The interface between film and substrate is modeled as a cohesive layer with randomly fluctuating shear strength/fracture energy. We…
We study the interaction between two cracks propagating quasistatically during the tearing of a thin brittle sheet. We show that the cracks attract each other following a path described by a power law resulting from the competition between…
The properties of slow crack growth in brittle materials are analyzed both theoretically and experimentally. We propose a model based on a thermally activated rupture process. Considering a 2D spring network submitted to an external load…
Thin layers of elastomers bonded to two rigid plates demonstrate unusual failure response. Historically, it has been believed that strongly-bonded layers fail by two distinct mechanisms: (i) internal/external penny-shaped crack nucleation…
Predicting the growth of large cracks in brittle materials is a fundamental unresolved problem in fracture mechanics. Under out-of-plane shear loading, an initially planar crack may fragment into multiple cracks, forming an echelon crack…
We perform traction experiments on viscous liquids highly confined between parallel plates, a geometry known as the probe-tack test in the adhesion community. Direct observation during the experiment coupled to force measurement shows the…
Inspired by the observation that many naturally occurring adhesives arise as textured thin films, we consider the displacement controlled peeling of a flexible plate from an incision-patterned thin adhesive elastic layer. We find that crack…
We study experimentally the paths of an assembly of cracks growing in interaction in a heterogeneous two-dimensional elastic brittle material submitted to uniaxial stress. For a given initial crack assembly geometry, we observe two types of…
Slow crack growth in a model of homogenous brittle elastic material is described as a thermal activation process where stress fluctuations allow to overcome a breaking threshold through a series of irreversible steps. We study the case of a…
The detachment of material in an adhesive wear process is driven by a fracture mechanism which is controlled by a critical length-scale. Previous efforts in multi-asperity wear modeling have applied this microscopic process to rough elastic…
The paper addresses the problem of a Mode III interfacial crack advancing quasi-statically in a heterogeneous composite material, that is a two-phase material containing elastic inclusions, both soft and stiff, and defects, such as…
We employ a recently developed model that allows the study of two-dimensional brittle crack propagation under fixed grip boundary conditions. The crack development highlights the importance of voids which appear ahead of the crack as…
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…
In this paper, we prove a new existence result for a variational model of crack growth in brittle materials proposed in [15]. We consider the case of $n$-dimensional finite elasticity, for an arbitrary $n\ge1$, with a quasiconvex bulk…
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…
Cohesive granular materials, like wet sand, retain their shape before yielding under stress. This solid-like behavior is associated with elasticity. As the loading increases, the material typically flows. However, cohesive materials can…
In this paper we are concerned with the problem of a crack lying at the interface between dissimilar materials with microstructure undergoing antiplane deformations. The micropolar behaviour of the materials is described by the theory of…
Statistics and thermally activated dynamics of crack nucleation and propagation in a two-dimensional heterogeneous material containing quenched randomly distributed defects are studied theoretically. Using the generalized Griffith criterion…
In layered materials, a common mode of deformation involves buckling of the layers under tensile deformation in the direction perpendicular to the layers. The instability mechanism, which operates in elastic materials from geological to…
Two novel single-period cracks were observed in experiments of cutting a folded sheet with a blunt object and tearing a thin brittle sheet under the guidance of a meterstick. Additionally, we observed a period-doubling crack in the tearing…