Related papers: Configurational forces explain echelon cracks in s…
When a crack interacts with material heterogeneities, its front distorts and adopts complex tortuous configurations that are reminiscent of the energy barriers encountered during crack propagation. As such, the study of crack front…
While crack nucleation and propagation in the brittle or quasi-brittle regime can be predicted via variational or material-force-based phase field fracture models, these models often assume that the underlying elastic response of the…
We derive the expressions for configurational forces in Kohn-Sham density functional theory, which correspond to the generalized variational force computed as the derivative of the Kohn-Sham energy functional with respect to the position of…
Crack fronts deform due to heterogeneities, and inspecting these deformations can reveal local variations of material properties, and help predict out of plane damage. Current models neglect the influence of a finite dissipation…
Highly-deformable materials, from synthetic hydrogels to biological tissues, are becoming increasingly important from both fundamental and practical perspectives. Their mechanical behaviors, in particular the dynamics of crack propagation…
During brittle crack propagation, a smooth crack front curve frequently becomes disjoint, generating a stepped crack and a material ligament that unites the newly formed crack fronts. These universal features fundamentally alter the…
Cutting soft materials is a complex process governed by the interplay of bulk large deformation, interfacial soft fracture, and contact forces with the cutting tool. Existing experimental characterizations and numerical models often fail to…
The evolution of a crack front under mixed mode loading (I+III) is studied using a phase field model in 3 dimensions with no stress boundary conditions. As previously observed experimentally in gels, there is a relaxation toward a geometry…
Variational phase-field models of brittle fracture are powerful tools for studying Griffith-type crack propagation in complex scenarios. However, as approximations of Griffith's theory-which does not incorporate a strength criterion-these…
Configurational, or Eshelby-like, forces are shown to strongly influence the nonlinear dynamics of an elastic rod constrained with a frictionless sliding sleeve at one end and with an attached mass at the other end. The configurational…
Understanding the role played by the microstructure of materials on their macroscopic failure properties is an important challenge in solid mechanics. Indeed, when a crack propagates at a heterogeneous brittle interface, the front is…
The interaction of crack fronts with asperities is central to the criteria of fracture in heterogeneous materials and for predicting fracture surface formation. It is known how dynamic crack fronts respond to small, 1st-order,…
We examine how shell geometry affects fracture. As suggested by previous results and our own phase-field simulations, shell shape dramatically affects crack evolution and the effective toughness of the shell structure. To gain insight and…
This work models brittle fracture using a linearized surface-substrate theory in which the crack faces possess surface stresses derived from a surface strain-gradient elastic energy. The model incorporates surface stretching, curvature, and…
We study the effects realistic fracture criteria have on crack morphology obtained in numerical simulations with a stochastic discrete element method. Results are obtained with two criteria which are consistent with the theory of elasticity…
When an inextensible elastic rod is 'injected' through a sliding sleeve against a fixed constraint, configurational forces are developed, deeply influencing the mechanical response. This effect, which is a consequence of the change in…
We present a variational reduced-order model for three-dimensional coplanar propagation of sharp cracks in heterogeneous perfectly brittle solids under mixed-mode I+II+III loading. The approach connects the variational fracture formulation…
Phase-field fracture models provide a powerful approach to modeling fracture, potentially enabling the unguided prediction of crack growth in complex patterns. To ensure that only tensile stresses and not compressive stresses drive crack…
The phase field fracture method has emerged as a promising computational tool for modelling a variety of problems including, since recently, hydrogen embrittlement and stress corrosion cracking. In this work, we demonstrate the potential of…
In earlier papers (Leblond et.al., 2011, 2019), we presented linear stability analyses of the coplanar propagation of a crack loaded in mixed-mode I+III, based on a "double'' propagation criterion combining Griffith (1920)'s energetic…