Related papers: Strength of 2D Glasses Explored by Machine-Learnin…
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…
We use large-scale simulations to investigate the dynamic fracture of silica and sodium-silicate glasses under uniaxial tension. The stress-strain curves demonstrate that silica glass is brittle whereas the glasses rich in Na show…
This study examines the roughness of mechanically cleaved edges in 2D crystals and glasses using molecular dynamics simulations with chemically accurate machine-learning force fields. Our results show that ultra-flat armchair and zigzag…
The existence of nanoscale ductility during the fracture of silicate glasses remains controversial. Here, based on molecular dynamics simulations coupled with topological constraint theory, we show that nano-ductility arises from the…
Extreme mechanical processes such as strong lattice distortion and bond breakage during fracture are ubiquitous in nature and engineering, which often lead to catastrophic failure of structures. However, understanding the nucleation and…
The fracture energy of brittle materials rises with crack velocity, and this effect is typically attributed to surface roughening from path instabilities. Here we show, using molecular dynamics simulations of silica glass with a…
Amorphous silica ($a-SiO_2$) is a widely used inorganic material. Interestingly, the relationship between the local atomic structures of $a-SiO_2$ and their effects on ductility and fracture is seldom explored. Here, we combine large-scale…
We compare the ability of various interaction potentials to predict the structural and mechanical properties of silica and sodium silicate glasses. While most structural quantities show a relatively mild dependence on the potential used,…
We have studied the low speed fracture regime for different glassy materials with variable but controlled length scales of heterogeneity in a carefully mastered surrounding atmosphere. By using optical and atomic force (AFM) microscopy…
In order to design tougher materials, it is crucial to understand the relationship between their composition and their resistance to fracture. To this end, we investigate the fracture toughness of usual sodium silicate glasses (NS) and…
Fracture toughness is a critical mechanical property of glasses, but a detailed understanding of its link to composition and structure is still missing. Here, focusing on the industrially important family of calcium aluminosilicate glasses,…
The widespread use of sodium aluminosilicate glass in many engineering applications due to its mechanical and optical properties (transparency, dielectric, etc.), has become common in recent years. However, glass, a brittle material, has…
We report in situ Atomic Force Microscopy experiments which reveal the presence of nanoscale damage cavities ahead of a stress-corrosion crack tip in glass. Their presence might explain the departure from linear elasticity observed in the…
Being able to predict the failure of materials based on structural information is a fundamental issue with enormous practical and industrial relevance for the monitoring of devices and components. Thanks to recent advances in deep learning,…
Understanding the fracture toughness of glasses is of prime importance for science and technology. We study it here using extensive atomistic simulations in which the interaction potential, glass transition cooling rate and loading geometry…
The difference between free surface energy and fracture toughness in amorphous silica is studied via multi-scale simulations. We combine the homogenization of a molecular dynamics fracture model with a phase-field approach to track and…
The fragile-to-strong glass transition is a fascinating phenomenon that still presents many theoretical and experimental challenges. A major one is how to tune the fragility of a glass-forming liquid. Here, we study a two-dimensional (2D)…
Understanding the fracture toughness (resistance) of glasses is a fundamental problem of prime theoretical and practical importance. Here we theoretically study its dependence on the loading rate, the age (history) of the glass and the…
Silicene, a 2D analogue of graphene, has spurred a tremendous research interest in the scientific community for its unique properties essential for next generation electronic devices. In this work, for the first time, we present a molecular…
Indentation has been widely used for investigating the mechanical behavior of glasses. However, how the various microscopic properties (such as atomic structure and mechanics) of glass evolve from the immediate contact with the indenter to…