Related papers: Discontinuous Crack Fronts of Three-Dimensional Fr…
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…
A phase field model of a crack front propagating in a three dimensional brittle material is used to study the fractographic patterns induced by the branching instability. The numerical results of this model give rise to crack surfaces that…
Patterns on broken surfaces are well-known from everyday experience, but surprisingly, how and why they form are very much open questions. Well-defined facets are commonly observed1-4 along fracture surfaces which are created by slow…
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…
During brittle crack propagation, a smooth crack front curve frequently becomes disjoint, generating a stepped crack and a material ligament that unites the newly formed crack fronts. These universal features fundamentally alter the…
When fast cracks become unstable to microscopic branching (micro-branching), fracture no longer occurs in an effective 2D medium. We follow in-plane crack front dynamics via real-time measurements in brittle gels as micro-branching unfolds…
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,…
We briefly review a number of important recent experimental and theoretical developments in the field of dynamic fracture. Topics include experimental validation of the equations of motion for straight tensile cracks (in both infinite media…
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…
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,…
A planar crack generically segments into an array of "daughter cracks" shaped as tilted facets when loaded with both a tensile stress normal to the crack plane (mode I) and a shear stress parallel to the crack front (mode III). We…
Crack fronts deform due to heterogeneities, and inspecting these deformations can reveal local variations of material properties, and help predict out of plane damage. Current models neglect the influence of a finite dissipation…
Crack propagation is studied numerically using a continuum phase-field approach to mode III brittle fracture. The results shed light on the physics that controls the speed of accelerating cracks and the characteristic branching instability…
Ultimately, brittle fracture involves breaking atomic bonds. However, we still lack a clear picture of what happens in the highly deformed region around a moving crack tip. Consequently, we still cannot link nano to atomic-scale phenomena…
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…
In this paper, we'll answer several abstract, formal questions about the nature of crack growth and nucleation. Bringing a field theory point of view to fracture illuminates things in what I hope will be an entertaining way. Formally, what…
The two-dimensional oscillatory crack instability, experimentally observed in a class of brittle materials under strongly dynamic conditions, has been recently reproduced by a nonlinear phase-field fracture theory. Here we highlight the…
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…
The evolution of a crack front under mixed mode loading (I+III) is studied using a phase field model in 3 dimensions with no stress boundary conditions. As previously observed experimentally in gels, there is a relaxation toward a geometry…
This paper presents a formulation for brittle fracture in 3D elastic solids within the context of configurational mechanics. The local form of the first law of thermodynamics provides a condition for equilibrium of the crack front. The…