Related papers: Invariant fractocohesive length in thermally aged …
Elastomeric materials display a complicated set of stretchability and fracture properties that strongly depend on the flaw size, which has long been of interest to engineers and materials scientists. Here, we combine experiments and…
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…
Soft polymers are ubiquitous materials in nature and as engineering materials with properties varying from rate-independent to rate-dependent. Current fracture toughness measures are non-unique for rate-dependent soft materials for varying…
We carry out uniaxial continuous and step stretching of various crosslinked polymer networks to demonstrate how characteristics of rupture (from continuous stretching) and delayed rupture (from step stretching) can be used to probe the…
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…
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…
This study investigated, experimentally and numerically, the fracturing behavior of thermoset polymer structures featuring cracks and sharp u-notches. It is shown that, even for cases in which the sharpness of the notch would suggest…
Fracture toughness is the material property characterizing resistance to failure. Predicting its value from the solid structure at the atomistic scale remains elusive, even in the simplest situations of brittle fracture. We report here…
The mechanical behaviour of many materials, including polymers or natural materials, significantly depends on the rate of deformation. As a consequence, a rate-dependent ductile-to-brittle fracture transition may be observed. For…
Entanglement of polymer chains is ubiquitous in elastomers, gels, and biological tissues. While the effects of chain entanglement on elasticity and viscoelasticity of polymer networks have been intensively studied, it remains elusive how…
We study the influence of thermal fluctuations on the fracture of elastic networks, via simulations of the uniaxial extension of central-force spring networks with varying rigidity, i.e. connectivity. Studying their failure response, both…
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…
The coefficient of static friction between solids generally depends on the time they have remained in static contact before the measurement. Such frictional aging is at the origin of the difference between static and dynamic friction…
Many new soft but tough rubbery materials have been recently discovered and new applications such as flexible prosthetics, stretchable electrodes or soft robotics continuously emerge. Yet, a credible multi-scale quantitative picture of…
This paper presents a micro-mechanical approach to describe the effects of thermo-oxidation on the constitutive behavior of aged elastomers at the long-range timescales. In particular, this model focuses on the effects of thermo-oxidative…
The fracture behavior of brittle and ductile materials can be strongly influenced by thermal fluctuations, especially in micro- and nano-devices as well as in rubberlike and biological materials. However, temperature effects, in particular…
The accurate measurement of fracture resistance in elastomers is essential for predicting the mechanical limits of soft devices. Usually, this is achieved by performing tearing or peeling experiments on thin-sheet samples. Here, we show…
This paper presents a physics-based constitutive equation to predict the thermo-chemical aging in elastomers. High-temperature oxidation in elastomers is a complex phenomenon. The macromolecular network of elastomers' microstructures…
Fracture of materials with rate-dependent mechanical behaviour, e.g. polymers, is a highly complex process. For an adequate modelling, the coupling between rate-dependent stiffness, dissipative mechanisms present in the bulk material and…
Soft solids with tunable mechanical response are at the core of new material technologies, but a crucial limit for applications is their progressive aging over time, which dramatically affects their functionalities. The generally accepted…