Related papers: Why planar cracks fragment into echelon cracks
Notwithstanding the evidence against them, classical variational phase-field models continue to be used and pursued in an attempt to describe fracture nucleation in elastic brittle materials. In this context, the main objective of this…
Brittle materials under impact loading exhibit a transition from a cracked solid to a granular medium. Appropriate representation of this transition to granular mechanics and the resulting initial fragment size and shape distribution in…
We propose a variational phase-field model of fracture capable of accounting for arbitrary closed convex strength domains. Unlike traditional models based on Ambrosio and Tortorelli regularization, the phase-field variable does not affect…
Unstable growth of cracks (rough crack surface and crack branching) in dynamic fracture has long been observed in various materials. Until now, there was no universally agreed upon explanation for these instabilities. Here, we demonstrate…
We study the nucleation and development of crack patterns in thin composite fibers under tension in this work. A fiber comprises an elastic core and an outer layer of a weaker brittle material. In recent tensile experiments on such…
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…
A continuum model of fracture that describes, in principle, the propagation and interaction of arbitrary distributions of cracks and voids with evolving topology without a fracture criterion is developed. It involves a 'law of motion' for…
We study how the loading rate, specimen geometry and microstructural texture select the dynamics of a crack moving through an heterogeneous elastic material in the quasi-static approximation. We find a transition, fully controlled by two…
Mixed mode (I+III) loading induces segmented crack front \'echelon structures connected by steps. We study this instability in a highly deformable, strain-hardening material. We find that \'echelons develop beyond a finite, size-independent…
In this paper, we prove a new existence result for a variational model of crack growth in brittle materials proposed in [15]. We consider the case of $n$-dimensional finite elasticity, for an arbitrary $n\ge1$, with a quasiconvex bulk…
The pattern development of multiple cracks in extremely anisotropic solids such as bilayer or multilayer two-dimensional (2D) crystals contains rich physics, which, however, remains largely unexplored. We studied crack interaction across…
We present some recent existence results for the variational model of crack growth in brittle materials proposed by Francfort and Marigo in 1998. These results, obtained in collaboration with Francfort and Toader, cover the case of…
The relevant parameters at the microstructure scale that govern the macroscopic toughness of disordered brittle materials are investigated theoretically. We focus on planar crack propagation and describe the front evolution as the…
Predicting crack trajectories in brittle solids remains an open challenge in fracture mechanics due to the non-local nature of crack propagation and the way cracks modify their surrounding medium. Here, we develop a framework for…
We present a model for stable crack growth in a constrained geometry. The morphology of such cracks show scaling properties consistent with self affinity. Recent experiments show that there are two distinct self-affine regimes, one on small…
The dynamics of a crack propagating in an elastic inhomogeneous material is investigated. The variations of the average crack velocity with the external loading are measured for a brittle rock and are shown to display two distinct regimes:…
We address analytically and numerically the problem of crack path prediction in the model system of a crack propagating under thermal loading. We show that one can explain the instability from a straight to a wavy crack propagation by using…
The problem of finding what direction cracks should move is not completely solved. A commonly accepted way to predict crack directions is by computing the density of elastic potential energy stored well away from the crack tip, and finding…
The aim of the paper is to propose a paradigm shift for the variational approach of brittle fracture. Both dynamics and the limit case of statics are treated in a same framework. By contrast with the usual incremental approach, we use a…
Through controlled numerical simulations in a one dimensional fiber bundle model with local stress concentration, we established an inverse correlation between the strength of the material and the cracks which grow inside it - both the…