Related papers: Why planar cracks fragment into echelon cracks
The purpose of this paper is to fill the gap between the classical treatment of brittle fracture mechanics and the new idea of considering the crack evolution as a free discontinuity problem. Griffith and Irwin criterions of crack…
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,…
Material failure is mediated by the propagation of cracks, which in realistic 3D materials typically involve multiple coexisting fracture planes. Multiple fracture-plane interactions create poorly understood out-of-plane crack structures,…
The problem of crack pattern formation due to thermal shock loading at the surface of half-space is solved numerically using two-dimensional boundary element method. The results of numerical simulations with 100-200 random simultaneously…
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…
The variational principle of safe equilibrium for inhomogeneous elastic cracked bodies is formulated. Using the standard calculus of variations, we show that the crack remains in safe equilibrium as long as the maximum energy reduction rate…
The dynamics of rapid brittle cracks is commonly studied in the framework of linear elastic fracture mechanics where nonlinearities are neglected. However, recent experimental and theoretical work demonstrated explicitly the importance of…
We study an approximation scheme for a variational theory of quasi-static crack growth based on an eigendeformation approach. We consider a family of energy functionals depending on a small parameter $\varepsilon$ and on two fields, the…
The properties of slow crack growth in brittle materials are analyzed both theoretically and experimentally. We propose a model based on a thermally activated rupture process. Considering a 2D spring network submitted to an external load…
A bonded particle model is used to explore how variations in the material properties of brittle, isotropic solids affect critical behavior in fragmentation. To control material properties, a new model is proposed which includes breakable…
Superficial (two dimensional) crack patterns appear when a thin layer of material elastically attached to a substrate contracts. We study numerically the maturation process undergone by these crack patterns when they are allowed to adapt in…
Various kinds of heterogeneity in solids including atomistic discreteness affect the fracture strength as well as the failure dynamics remarkably. Here we study the effects of an initial crack in a discrete model for fracture in…
The morphology of fracture surfaces encodes the various complex damage and fracture processes occurring at the microstructure scale that have lead to the failure of a given heterogeneous material. Understanding how to decipher this…
Cracks in brittle materials produce two types of generic surface structures: facets at low velocities and micro-branches at higher ones. Here we observe a transition from faceting to micro-branching in polyacrylamide gels that is…
We propose a theoretical model for branching instabilities in 2-dimensional fracture, offering predictions for when crack branching occurs, how multiple cracks develop, and what is the geometry of multiple branches. The model is based on…
This paper presents a computational framework for quasi-static brittle fracture in three dimensional solids. The paper set outs the theoretical basis for determining the initiation and direction of propagating cracks based on the concept of…
We examine theoretically and numerically fast propagation of a tensile crack along unidimensional strips with periodically evolving toughness. In such dynamic fracture regimes, crack front waves form and transport front disturbances along…
Stress enhancement in the vicinity of brittle cracks makes the macro-scale failure properties extremely sensitive to the micro-scale material disorder. Therefore: (i) Fracturing systems often display a jerky dynamics, so-called crackling…
Slow crack propagation in ductile, and in certain brittle materials, appears to take place via the nucleation of voids ahead of the crack tip due to plastic yields, followed by the coalescence of these voids. Post mortem analysis of the…
The brittle fragmentation of spheres is studied numerically by a 3D Discrete Element Model. Large scale computer simulations are performed with models that consist of agglomerates of many spherical particles, interconnected by beam-truss…