Related papers: Discrepancy between sub-critical and fast rupture …
Dynamic crack propagation drives catastrophic solid failures. In many amorphous brittle materials, sufficiently fast crack growth involves small-scale, high-frequency microcracking damage localized near the crack tip. The ultra-fast…
Conforming materials to rigid substrates with Gaussian curvature --- positive for spheres and negative for saddles --- has proven a versatile tool to guide the self-assembly of defects such as scars, pleats, folds, blisters, and liquid…
We have studied the propagation of a crack front along the heterogeneous weak plane of a transparent poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) block using two different loading conditions: imposed constant velocity and creep relaxation. We have…
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 geometrical characteristic of quasi-static fractures in disordered media, using iterated conformal maps to determine the evolution of the fracture pattern. This method allows an efficient and accurate solution of the Lam\'e…
Cracks, the major vehicle for material failure, tend to accelerate to high velocities in brittle materials. In three-dimensions, cracks generically undergo a micro-branching instability at about 40% of their sonic limiting velocity. Recent…
We investigate the roughening of shear cracks running along the interface between a thin film and a rigid substrate. We demonstrate that short-range correlated fluctuations of the interface strength lead to self-affine roughening of the…
We develop a robust cut finite element method for a model of diffusion in fractured media consisting of a bulk domain with embedded cracks. The crack has its own pressure field and can cut through the bulk mesh in a very general fashion.…
We present a continuum theory which describes the fast growth of a crack by surface diffusion. This mechanism overcomes the usual cusp singularity by a self-consistent selection of the crack tip radius. It predicts the saturation of the…
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…
The evolution and spatial structure of displacement fronts in fractures with self-affine rough walls are studied by numerical simulations. The fractures are open and the two faces are identical but shifted along their mean plane, either…
The dynamics of a single crack moving through a heterogeneous medium is studied in the quasi-static approximation. Equations of motion for the crack front are formulated and the resulting scaling behaviour analyzed. In a model scalar system…
The rupture of dry frictional interfaces occurs through the propagation of fronts breaking the contacts at the interface. Recent experiments have shown that the velocities of these rupture fronts range from quasi-static velocities…
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…
The permeability of two-dimensional fractures with self-affine fractal roughness is studied via analytic arguments and numerical simulations. The limit where the roughness amplitude is small compared with average fracture aperture is…
The fracture of highly deformable soft materials is of great practical importance in a wide range of technological applications, emerging in fields such as soft robotics, stretchable electronics and tissue engineering. From a basic physics…
A study of crack patterns in laponite films of different thickness is presented. Two cracking regimes are observed. The earlier with a higher rate of desiccation and shrinking has predominantly four-fold vertices in the crack network, while…
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…
In this review article we consider the crack growth resistance ofmicrometer and submicrometer sized samples from the fracture mechanics point of view. Standard fracture mechanics test procedures were developed for macroscale samples, and…
Fracture propagation is highly sensitive to the conditions at the crack tip. In heterogeneous materials, microscale obstacles can cause propagation instabilities. Macroscopic heterogeneities modify the stress field over scales larger than…