Fracture Mechanics of Rocks.

Fracture toughness measurements on igneous rocks using a high-pressure, high-temperature rock fracture mechanics cell

A sound knowledge of mechanical properties of rocks at high temperatures and pressures is essential for modelling volcanological problems such as fracture of lava flows and dike emplacement. In particular, fracture toughness is a scale invariant material property of a rock that describes its resistance to tensile failure. A new fracture mechanics apparatus has been constructed enabling fracture...

Fracture mechanics-based life prediction of a riveted lap joint

In this paper, three-dimensional modeling of the fatigue crack growth profiles was performed in a simple riveted lap joint. Simulation results showed that mode I was dominated on the one side of the plates and the crack straightly grew on this side, while the other side of the plates was in a mixed-mode condition and the crack propagation path was not straight on this side. Afterward, the fract...

FRACTURE MECHANICS WHAT IS FRACTURE MECHANICS Fracture mechanics is mechanics of solids containing planes of displacement discontinuities (cracks)

Fracture mechanics

In this article, after a brief description of some signi®cant catastrophic structural failures going back to the period when iron and steel began to replace wood and masonry as the primary structural materials, the historical development of the ®eld of fracture mechanics is discussed. First, the basic concepts of the ®eld, the motivation underlying their development and the key contributions ma...

Reactive-infiltration instabilities in rocks. Fracture dissolution

A reactive fluid dissolving the surface of a uniform fracture will trigger an instability in the dissolution front, leading to spontaneous formation of pronounced well-spaced channels in the surrounding rock matrix. Although the underlying mechanism is similar to the wormhole instability in porous rocks there are significant differences in the physics, due to the absence of a steadily propagati...