Related papers: Pattern selection of cracks in directionally dryin…
The propagation of an interfacial crack along a heterogeneous weak plane of a transparent Plexiglas block is followed using a high resolution fast camera. We show that the fracture front dynamics is governed by local and irregular…
Hydrated granular packings often crack into discrete clusters of grains when dried. Despite its ubiquity, accurate prediction of cracking remains elusive. Here, we elucidate the previously overlooked role of individual grain shrinkage---a…
Crack-like objects that propagate along frictional interfaces, i.e.~frictional shear cracks, play a major role in a broad range of frictional phenomena. Such frictional cracks are commonly assumed to feature the universal square root…
The elastic response of the crystalline sheet to the stretching deformation in the form of wrinkles has been extensively investigated. In this work, we extend this fundamental scientific question to the plastic regime by exploring the…
Columnar jointing is a fracture pattern common in igneous rocks in which cracks self-organize into a roughly hexagonal arrangement, leaving behind an ordered colonnade. We report observations of columnar jointing in a laboratory analog…
How much energy does it take to stamp a thin elastic shell flat? Motivated by recent experiments on the wrinkling patterns of floating shells, we develop a rigorous method via $\Gamma$-convergence for answering this question to leading…
It is demonstrated that the dynamic structure is very important for the rate of drainage of a thin liquid film and it can be effectively taken into account by a dynamic fractal dimension. It is shown that the latter is a powerful tool for…
Patterns are quotidian in nature. Distinct multiscale patterns are generally a consequence of nonequilibrium dynamical processes associated with mechanical or hydrodynamic instabilities. In this thesis, I report experimental investigations…
We prepared thin layers of amorphous silicon by deposition of a liquid-phase polysilane precurser on glass substrate. Raman scattering provides evidence for residual tensile stress in the silicon, which is evaluated quantitatively. Under…
While of paramount importance in material science, the dynamics of cracks still lacks a complete physical explanation. The transition from their slow creep behavior to a fast propagation regime is a notable key, as it leads to full material…
In this contribution, a variational diffuse modeling framework for cracks in heterogeneous media is presented. A static order parameter smoothly bridges the discontinuity at material interfaces, while an evolving phase-field captures the…
We document a sequence of bifurcations and elastic patterns in sheared bent sheets of intermediate aspect ratio. The sheets undergo inversion of curvature through the passage of localized features, often in S-shaped pairs. Nested…
To better understand the mechanisms of fracture pattern development and fluid escape in low permeability rocks, we performed time-resolved in situ X-ray tomography imaging to investigate the processes that occur during the slow heating…
The phase-field approach to fracture has been proven to be a mathematically sound and easy to implement method for computing crack propagation with arbitrary crack paths. Hereby crack growth is driven by energy minimization resulting in a…
We discuss crack propagation along the interface between two dissimilar materials. The crack edge separates two states of the interface, ``stick'' and ``slip''. In the slip region we assume that the shear stress is proportional to the…
A liquid droplet resting on a soft gel substrate can deform that substrate to the point of material failure, whereby fractures develop on the gel surface that propagate outwards from the contact-line in a starburst pattern. In this paper,…
When a colloidal gel dries through evaporation, cracks are usually formed, which often reveal underlying processes at work during desiccation. Desiccating colloid droplets of few hundred $\mu l$ size show interesting effects of pattern…
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…
We present an intuitive physical picture for fractures in nacre-type stratified materials via scaling arguments: strain distributions around a fracture are rather different depending on directions and size of fractures. We thus observe that…
We perform fracture experiments on nanoscale phase separated glasses and measure crack surface roughness by atomic force microscopy. The ability of tuning the phase domain size by thermal treatment allows us to test thoroughly the…