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This work proposes an investigation of the fracturing behavior of polymer nanocomposites. Towards this end, the study leverages the analysis of a large bulk of fracture tests from the literature with the goal of critically investigating the…
In fracture mechanics, polyacrylamide hydrogels have been widely used as a model material for experiments, benefited from its optical transparency, fracture brittleness, and low Rayleigh wave velocity. To describe the brittle fracture in…
This paper proposes a phase field model (PFM) for describing hydraulic fracture propagation in transversely isotopic media. The coupling between the fluid flow and displacement fields is established according to the classical Biot…
We revisit the classical problem of a polymer confined in a slit in both of its static and dynamic aspects. We confirm a number of well known scaling predictions and analyse their range of validity by means of comprehensive Molecular…
Despite extensive theoretical treatment of short- to long-crack transitions, direct experimental quantification of how elastic and plastic energy contributions evolve at the crack tip during arrest has remained absent. In this study, we…
Partition of unity methods (PUM) are of domain decomposition type and provide the opportunity for multiscale and multiphysics numerical modeling. Within the PUM global-local enrichment scheme [1, 2] different physical models can exist to…
Understanding failure in nanomaterials is critical for the design of reliable structural materials and small-scale devices that have components or microstructural elements at the nanometer length scale. No consensus exists on the effect of…
We study how the loading rate, specimen geometry and microstructural texture select the dynamics of a crack moving through an heterogeneous elastic material in the quasi-static approximation. We find a transition, fully controlled by two…
This study aims to unravel the micro-mechanical underpinnings of the emergence of the fractocohesive length scale as a central concept in modern fracture mechanics. A thermodynamically consistent damage and fracture model for elastomers is…
The mechanical behavior of composite materials is significantly influenced by their structure and constituent materials. One emerging class of composite materials is irregular network reinforced composites (NRC's), whose reinforcing phase…
A simple and robust spring-block model obeying threshold dynamics is introduced to study surface fracture of an overlayer subject to stress induced by adhesion to a substrate. We find a novel phase transition in the crack morphology and…
This study addresses ductile fracture of single grains in metals by modeling of the formation and propagation of transgranular cracks. A proposed model integrates gradient extended hardening, phase-field modeling for fracture, and crystal…
For polymer nanocomposites, disordered microstructural nature makes processing control and tailoring properties to desired values a challenge. Understanding process-structure-property relation can provide guidelines for process and…
Epsilon-near-zero materials are exceptional candidates for studying electrodynamics and nonlinear optical processes at the nanoscale. We demonstrate that by alternating a metal and a highly doped conducting-oxide, the epsilon-near-zero…
Capturing the dynamics of granular flows at intermediate length scales can often be difficult. We propose studying the dynamics of contact networks as a new tool to study fracture at intermediate scales. Using experimental three-dimensional…
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…
Strain-engineering of materials encompasses significant elastic deformation and leads to breaking of the lattice symmetry and as a consequence to the emergence of optical anisotropy. However, the capability to image and map local strain…
Multiple polymer networks, such as double-network elastomers comprising a sacrificial and a matrix network, exhibit exceptional mechanical resilience, commonly attributed to the formation of an extended damage zone before a crack can grow.…
Coherent misfitting precipitates in elastically stressed media such as $\gamma \prime$ particles in nickel-based super-alloys show various splitting patterns such as doublets, quartets, or octets due to their misfit strain energy. While it…
A field theory is presented for predicting damage and fracture in quasi brittle materials incorporating effects of irreversible (plastic) deformation as well as elastic moduli that soften with damage. The new observation made here is that…