THE FRACTURE of ductile solids has frequently been observed to result from the large growth and coalescence of microscopic voids, a process enhanced by the superposition of hydrostatic tensile stresses on a plastic deformation field. The ductile growth of voids is treated here as a problem in continuum plasticity. First, a variational principle is established to characterize the flow field in a...

The irreversible chemomechanical degradation is a critical issue in the development of high-capacity electrode materials for the next-generation lithium (Li)-ion batteries. Here we report the self-healing behavior of gallium nanodroplets (GaNDs) under electrochemical cycling at room temperature, observed with in situ transmission electron microscopy (TEM). During lithiation, the GaNDs underwent...

When investigating materials to be utilized, attention inevitably focuses on their resistance over the service life. Despite popularity of amorphous polymers, ranging from applications in structural components ability increase toughness biocomposites, investigation short- long-term has been considerably limited date. Here, an improved testing equipment and model are proposed describe polymers u...

Relations between fracture toughness and microstructural details have been calculated for ductile materials based on a dilatational plasticity constitutive model that has recently been proposed. The model generalizes the Gurson model to account for both void growth and coalescence with explicit dependence on void shape and distribution effects. Based on a small scale yielding formulation of cra...

A formal asymptotic analysis of two classes of phase field models for void growth and coarsening in irradiated solids has been performed to assess their sharp-interface kinetics. It was found that the sharp interface limit of type B models, which include only point defect concentrations as order parameters governed by Cahn-Hilliard equations, captures diffusion-controlled kinetics. It was also ...

The process of fracture in ductile metals involves the nucleation, growth, and linking of voids. This process takes place both at the low rates involved in typical engineering applications and at the high rates associated with dynamic fracture processes such as spallation. Here we study the growth of a void in a single crystal at high rates using molecular dynamics (MD) based on Finnis-Sinclair...