Related papers: Cracks Cleave Crystals
The temporal evolution of mechanical energy and spatially-averaged crack speed are both monitored in slowly fracturing artificial rocks. Both signals display an irregular burst-like dynamics, with power-law distributed fluctuations spanning…
While cracks in isotropic homogeneous materials propagate straight, perpendicularly to the tensile axis, cracks in natural and synthetic composites deflect from a straight path, often increasing the toughness of the material. Here we…
We have measured the velocity of a running crack in brittle single crystal silicon as a function of energy flow to the crack tip. The experiments are designed to permit direct comparison with molecular dynamics simulations; therefore the…
We consider a model of fragmentation of sheet by cracks that move with a velocity in preferred direction, but undergo random transverse displacements as they move. There is a non-zero probability of crack-splitting, and the split cracks…
A model which accounts for cracking avalanches in piles of grains subject to external load is introduced and numerically simulated. The stress is stochastically transferred from higher layers to lower ones. Cracked areas exhibit various…
This paper demonstrates that rapid fracture of ideal brittle lattices naturally involves phenomena long seen in experiment, but which have been hard to understand from a continuum point of view. These idealized models do not mimic realistic…
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…
In our previous paper (Eur. Phys. J. E 4, 121 (2001)) we proposed a coarse-grained elastic energy for nacre, or stratified structure of hard and soft layers. We then analyzed a crack running perpendicular to the layers and suggested one…
In this paper we first obtain the order of stress singularity for a dynamically propagating self-affine fractal crack. We then show that there is always an upper bound to roughness, i.e. a propagating fractal crack reaches a terminal…
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…
We show the existence of quasistatic evolutions in a fracture model for brittle materials by a vanishing viscosity approach, in the setting of planar linearized elasticity. The crack is not prescribed a priori and is selected in a class of…
Although spectacular advances in hydraulic fracturing, aka fracking, have taken place and many aspects are well understood by now, the topology, geometry and evolution of the crack system hydraulically produced in the shale still remains an…
While the hydraulic fracturing technology, aka fracking (or fraccing, frac), has become highly developed and astonishingly successful, a consistent formulation of the associated fracture mechanics that would not conflict with some…
This paper is devoted to the characterization of the energy release rate of a crack which is merely closed, connected, and with density $1/2$ at the tip. First, the blow-up limit of the displacement is analyzed, and the convergence to the…
Crack growth is the basic mechanism leading to the failure of brittle materials. Engineering addresses this problem within the framework of continuum mechanics, which links deterministically the crack motion to the applied loading. Such an…
A plastic crack model for smectic A liquid crystals under longitudinal shear is suggested. The solution of screw dislocation in smectic A is the key in which the correct result is just obtained by overcoming a longstanding puzzle [19]. We…
The growth of cracks combines materials science, fracture mechanics, and statistical physics. The importance of fluctuations in the crack velocity is fundamental since it signals that the crack overcomes local barriers such as tough spots…
Optimal paths play a fundamental role in numerous physical applications ranging from random polymers to brittle fracture, from the flow through porous media to information propagation. Here for the first time we explore the path that is…
When cracks form in a thin contracting layer, they sequentially break the layer into smaller and smaller pieces. A rectilinear crack pattern encodes information about the order of crack formation, as later cracks tend to intersect with…
Crack advance from short or long pre-cracks is predicted by the progressive failure of a cohesive zone in a strain gradient, elasto-plastic solid. The presence of strain gradients leads to the existence of an elastic zone at the tip of a…