Related papers: Nucleation and development of multiple cracks in t…

A thin flat rectangular plate supported on its edges and subjected to in-plane loading exhibits stable post-buckling behaviour. However, the introduction of a nonlinear (softening) elastic foundation may cause the response to become…

Statistical models are essential to get a better understanding of the role of disorder in brittle disordered solids. Fiber bundle models play a special role as a paradigm, with a very good balance of simplicity and non-trivial effects. We…

We consider a linearly elastic body consisting of two equal symmetrically arranged layers (or half-planes) connected by a structured interface as a prospective crack path. The interface is comprised by periodic discrete system of bonds. In…

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…

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…

Stochastic models for the development of cracks in 1 and 2 dimensional objects are presented. In one dimension, we focus on particular scenarios for interacting and non-interacting fragments during the breakup process. For two dimensional…

In viscoelastic materials, individually short-lived bonds collectively result in a mechanical resistance which is long-lived but finite, as ultimately cracks appear. Here we provide a microscopic mechanism by which cracks emerge from the…

We investigate crack propagation in a simple two-dimensional visco-elastic model and find a scaling regime in the relation between the propagation velocity and energy release rate or fracture energy, together with lower and upper bounds of…

The packing problem of long thin filaments that are injected into confined spaces is of fundamental interest for physicists and biologists alike. How linear threads pack and coil is well known only for the ideal case of rigid containers,…

We investigate the morphology and mechanics of a naturally curved elastic arch loaded at its center and frictionally supported at both ends on a flat, rigid substrate. Through systematic numerical simulations, we classify the observed…

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…

Tearing a thin sheet by forcing a rigid object through it leads to complex crack morphologies; a single oscillatory crack arises when a tool is driven laterally through a brittle sheet, while two diverging cracks and a series of…

We consider the quasi-static propagation of a Mode III crack along the interface in a bimaterial plane containing a finite array of small line defects (microcracks and rigid line inclusions). The microdefects are arranged to form a channel…

Self-positioned nanomembranes such as rolled-up tubes and wrinkled thin films have been potential systems for a variety of applications and basic studies on elastic properties of nanometer-thick systems. Although there is a clear driving…

We propose a minimal nonlinear model of brittle crack propagation by considering only the motion of the crack-tip atom. The model captures many essential features of steady-state crack velocity and is in excellent quantitative agreement…

Modeling folding surfaces with nonzero thickness is of practical interest for mechanical engineering. There are many existing approaches that account for material thickness in folding applications. We propose a new systematic and broadly…

Slow crack propagation in ductile, and in certain brittle materials, appears to take place via the nucleation of voids ahead of the crack tip due to plastic yields, followed by the coalescence of these voids. Post mortem analysis of the…

The invasion of air into porous systems in drying processes is often localized in soft materials, such as colloidal suspensions and granular pastes, and it typically develops in the form of cracks before ordinary drying begins. To…

Cracks in thin layers are influenced by what lies beneath them. From buried craters to crocodile skin, crack patterns are found over an enormous range of length scales. Regardless of absolute size, their substrates can dramatically…

An arch will grow on a rapidly deployed thin string in contact with a rigid plane. We present a qualitative model for the growing structure involving the amplification, rectification, and advection of slack in the presence of a steady…