Related papers: How glass breaks -- Damage explains the difference…
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…
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…
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 use molecular dynamics computer simulations to study the equilibrium properties of the surface of amorphous silica. Two types of geometries are investigated: i) clusters with different diameters (13.5\AA, 19\AA, and 26.5\AA) and ii) a…
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…
The structure of surfaces and interfaces of silica (SiO2) is investigated by large scale molecular dynamics computer simulations. In the case of a free silica surface, the results of a classical molecular dynamics simulation are compared to…
The strengths of glasses are intricately linked to their atomic-level heterogeneity. Atomistic simulations are frequently used to investigate the statistical physics of this relationship, compensating for the limited spatiotemporal…
The temporal evolution of mechanical energy and spatially-averaged crack speed are both monitored in slowly fracturing artificial rocks. Both signals display an irregular burst-like dynamics, with power-law distributed fluctuations spanning…
This paper presents a modeling framework to describe the driving mechanisms of cyclic failure in brittle and ductile materials, including cyclic plasticity and fatigue crack growth. A variational model is devised using the energetic…
We present a novel method to predict the fracture surface energy, {\gamma}, of isochemically crystallizing silicate glasses using readily available crystallographic structure data of their crystalline counterpart and tabled diatomic…
The dynamic energy balance is essential for earthquake studies. The energy balance approach is one of the most famous developments in fracture mechanics. To interpret seismological data, crack models and sliding on a frictional surface…
The breakup of glass and alumina plates due to planar impacts on one of their lateral sides is studied. Particular attention is given to investigating the spatial location of the cracks within the plates. Analysis based on a…
Using a simple and generic molecular dynamics model, we study the damage in a disc of interacting particles as the disc fragments upon impact with a wall. The damage, defined as the ratio of the number of bonds broken by the impact to the…
We report here atomic force microscopy experiments designed to uncover the nature of failure mechanisms occuring within the process zone at the tip of a crack propagating into a silica glass specimen under stress corrosion. The crack…
The molecular structures of amorphous silica and crystalline quartz are used to predict their intrinsic strength and fracture toughness together with the theoretical strength of silicon dioxide. At the atomic scale, the amorphous silica is…
Theoretical analyses and experiments have been carried out to investigate fracture behavior of glassy polymers. Our birefringence measurements quantify the local stress buildup at cut tip during different stages of drawing. Based on…
Fractoluminescence experiments are performed on two kinds of silicate glasses. All the light spectra collected during dynamic fracture reveal a black body radiator behaviour, which is interpreted as a crack velocity-dependent temperature…
We combine molecular dynamics simulations of deformations at the submicron scale with a continuum fracture mechanics calculation for the onset of crack propagation to predict the macroscopic fracture toughness of amorphous glassy polymers.…
Recently the scaling laws describing the roughness development of fracture surfaces was proposed to be related to the macroscopic elastic energy released during crack propagation [Mor00]. On this basis, an energy-based asymptotic analysis…