In this study, the phase field model of crack propagation is used to study the dynamic branching instability in the case of inplane loading in two dimensions. Simulation results are in good agreement with theoretical predictions and experimental findings. Namely, the critical speed at which the instability starts is about 0.48cs. They also show that a full 3D approach is needed to fully underst...

Models of surface fractures due to volcanic loading of an elastic plate are commonly used to constrain the thickness of planetary lithospheres, but discrepancies exist in predictions of the style of initial failure and in the nature of subsequent fracture evolution. In this study, we perform an experiment to determine the mode of initial failure due to the incremental addition of a conical load...

X-ray absorption microtomography loses considerable sensitivity when it is applied to samples with high-aspect-ratio cross-sections, e.g. plates or compact tension samples. Synchrotron X-ray phase enhanced imaging is much more sensitive than absorption-based techniques to cracks with small openings, and phase imaging and stereometric techniques are developed in this paper for three-dimensional ...

Brittle materials such as rock and ceramic usually exhibit apparent increases of strength and toughness when subjected to dynamic loading. The reasons for this phenomenon are not yet well understood, although a number of hypotheses have been proposed. Based on dynamic fracture mechanics, the present work offers an alternate insight into the dynamic behaviors of brittle materials. Firstly, a sin...

An understanding of how fatigue cracks grow in bone is of importance as fatigue is thought to be the main cause of clinical stress fractures. This study presents new results on the fatigue-crack growth behavior of small surface cracks (approximately 75-1000 microm in size) in human cortical bone, and compares their growth rates with data from other published studies on the behavior of both surf...

Uniform drying causes a quasi-two-dimensional cellular crack pattern in a thin layer of paste. In our previous research, we found that such cracks are created in a capillary state, and that the growth speed is determined by the rate of increase in tension in the layer, rather than by the magnitude of the tension itself. In this paper, we present a theoretical investigation of the effects of inc...

A new computational model for brittle fracture and fragmentation has been developed based on finite element analysis of non-linear elasticity equations. The proposed model propagates the cracks by splitting the mesh nodes alongside the most over-strained edges based on the principal direction of strain tensor. To prevent elements from overlapping and folding under large deformations, robust geo...