We review a series of large-scale molecular dynamics studies of dynamic fracture in brittle materials, aiming to clarify questions such as the limiting speed of cracks, crack tip instabilities and crack dynamics at interfaces. This chapter includes a brief introduction of atomistic modeling techniques and a short review of important continuum mechanics concepts of fracture. We find that hyperel...

We study the propagation of brittle fractures coupled to large out-of-plane bending, as when a brittle elastic thin sheet is cut by a moving object. Taking into account the separation of the film's bending and stretching energies and using fracture theory we show that such cracks propagate according to a simple set of geometrical rules in the limit of small thickness. In particular, this provid...

The high-cycle, push-pull fatigue fracture behavior of high-C, Si-Al-rich nanostructured bainitic steel was studied through the measurement of fatigue limits, a morphology examination and phase composition analysis of the fatigue fracture surface, as well as fractography of the fatigue crack propagation. The results demonstrated that the push-pull fatigue limits at 10⁷ cycles were estimated as ...

In several practical cases, the ultimate ductile fracture strain determined with tensile test is accepted as a material plasticity measure 1 . In this case, the plasticity has to be defined as an ability of a material to accommodate high permanent strains until fracture appears where this strain reaches certain value called ultimate fracture strain p. The strain value until fracture depends not...

We investigate theoretically statistics and thermally activated dynamics of crack nucleation and propagation in a two-dimensional heterogeneous material containing quenched randomly distributed defects. We consider a crack tip dynamics accounting for dissipation, thermal noise and the random forces arising from the elastic interactions of the crack opening with the defects. The equation of moti...

Computational studies have recently gained significant interest in engineering applications for the virtual monitoring of bone pathologies such as osteoporosis and fracture healing. Several authors have investigated numerically the role of quantitative ultrasound as a diagnostic and monitoring tool of the fracture healing process since ultrasonic techniques are non-invasive and non-ionizing mea...

This study investigates propagation of mode I crack in B70 pre-stressed concrete sleepers by fracture mechanics approach. A new experimental analysis is done for notched B70 pre-stressed concrete sleepers with Replica test and image analysis. A scanning electron microscope test (SEM) and an image analysis are applied for the Replica test in order to determine crack length and crack mouth openin...

Anterior knee pain in athletes is common and usually self limited. There should be a high index of suspicion and low threshold for special imaging in cases with acute onset and specific tenderness. The risk of propagation of stress fracture of the patella in athletes is highlighted. The case report presented illustrates the potential sequence of events.

Boolean functions that satisfy higher order propagation criteria are studied. A complete characterization is given of the autocorrelation function and Walsh spectrum of second order functions. The number of second order functions satisfying PC(k) is related to a problem in coding theory and can be computed explicitly for k = 1, n− 1 and n. A new interpretation of the number of balanced second o...