Related papers: Cracking Down on Fracture to Functionalise Damage
Fracture networks are ubiquitous in nature, spanning scales from millimeter-sized cracks in botanical peels to hundred-kilometer-long lineae on planetary satellites. The propagation of a crack is a complex, nonlinear phenomenon governed by…
Extreme localization of damage in conventional brittle materials is the source of a host of undesirable effects. We show how artificially engineered metamaterials with all brittle constituents can be designed to ensure that every breakable…
Mechanical metamaterials with engineered failure properties typically rely on periodic unit cell geometries or bespoke microstructures to achieve their unique properties. We demonstrate that intelligent use of disorder in metamaterials…
Mechanical metamaterials are artificial structures with unusual properties, such as negative Poisson ratio, bistability or tunable vibrational properties, that originate in the geometry of their unit cell. At the heart of such unusual…
This paper investigates the structure-property relations of thin-walled lattices under dynamic longitudinal compression, characterized by their cross-sections and heights. These relations elucidate the interactions of different geometric…
Fracture growth in a material is strongly influenced by the presence of inhomogeneities, which deviate crack trajectories from rectilinearity and deeply affect failure. Increasing crack tortuosity is connected to enhancement of fracture…
Laddering is the propagation of a topological defect in an everyday-life material: weft knitted fabrics, following a broken thread or a dropped stitch. What is a minor frustration when damaging a pair of tights is a more serious issue for…
Dynamic Mode III interfacial fracture in a dissimilar square-cell lattice, composed of two contrasting mass-spring lattice half-planes joined at an interface, is considered. The fracture, driven by a remotely applied load, is assumed to…
We investigate the fracture behavior of pre-cracked triangular beam-lattices whose elements have failure stresses drawn from a Weibull distribution. Through a statistical analysis and numerical simulations, we identify and verify the…
Refractory masonry (refractories) is exposed to in-service loads of different types. To rationalise the masonry design and failure analysis, differences of failure under cyclic and monotonic loading were studied. For samples of silica…
Most of the research concerting crack propagation in discrete media is concerned with specific types of external loading: displacements on the boundaries, or constant energy fluxes or feeding waves originating from infinity. In this paper…
This paper is devoted to the mechanics of fractal materials. A continuum framework accounting for the topological and metric properties of fractal domains in heterogeneous media is developed. The kinematics of deformations is elucidated and…
The structural integrity of microtubules is paramount for cellular function. We present a theoretical analysis of their lattice fracture, focusing on the influence of multi-seam structures arising from monomer defects and aiming to provide…
Fractal geometries, characterized by self-similar patterns and non-integer dimensions, provide an intriguing platform for exploring topological phases of matter. In this work, we introduce a theoretical framework that leverages isospectral…
Flexible mechanical metamaterials possess repeating structural motifs that imbue them with novel, exciting properties including programmability, anomalous elastic moduli and nonlinear and robust response. We address such structures via…
We propose a local reinforcement technique for lattices in the vicinity of a stress-raiser such as a notch, in order to elevate the macroscopic strength and ductility. A spatially non-uniform waviness distribution of sinusoidally-shaped…
Mechanical metamaterials can be designed to exhibit unique mechanical properties, including tunable auxetic behavior as well as multi-stability, which arise from the geometry and configuration of the constituent building blocks.…
Topological lattices have recently generated a great deal of interest based on the unique mechanical properties rooted in their topological polarization, including the ability to support localized modes at certain floppy edges. The study of…
The dynamic fragmentation of residually stressed solids involves a complex interplay between stored elastic energy, stress wave propagation, and crack instabilities. In this work, we investigate the fracture mechanics of chemically…
This work presents a rigorous mathematical formulation for topology optimization of a macrostructure undergoing ductile failure. The prediction of ductile solid materials which exhibit dominant plastic deformation is an intriguingly…