Non-local effects on dynamic damage accumulation in brittle solids

Loading rates and the dynamic initiation toughness in brittle solids

The experimentally determined marked rise of the stress intensity factor required to initiate crack propagation in brittle solids under variably high loading rates, is analyzed. This problem of fracture initiation at the tip of a crack is considered in terms of activating a flaw at some distance away from the tip. By using a semi-infinite crack in an unbounded two-dimensional solid subjected to...

Dynamic Fragmentation of Brittle Solids: A Multi-Scale Model

Mechanisms for fragment formation in brittle solids.

A model for mode I fracture in brittle materials is used to elucidate the relationship between characteristics of the fracture process, such as crack roughness, fractal dimension, and fragment size distributions. It is shown that different roughness in local regions of the crack path leads to different mechanisms for the subsequent fracture of those regions. Formation of two robust power laws f...

Hydraulically pumped cone fracture in brittle solids

An analysis of inner cone cracks in brittle solids subject to cyclic indentation in liquid is presented. These inner cone cracks, so named because they form well within the maximum contact circle, are postulated to be driven by a hydraulic pumping mechanism. Unlike their more traditional outer cone crack counterparts, inner cones do not appear in monotonic loading or even cyclic loading in the ...

Numerical investigation of dynamic brittle fracture via gradient damage models

Background: Gradient damage models can be acknowledged as a unified framework of dynamic brittle fracture. As a phase-field approach to fracture, they are gaining popularity over the last few years in the computational mechanics community. This paper concentrates on a better understanding of these models. We will highlight their properties during the initiation and propagation phases of defect ...