We study experimentally the fracture mechanisms of a model cohesive granular medium consisting of glass beads held together by solidified polymer bridges. The elastic response of this material can be controlled by changing the cross-linking of the polymer phase, for example. Here we show that its fracture toughness can be tuned over an order of magnitude by adjusting the stiffness and size of t...

By mixing glass beads with a curable polymer we create a well-defined cohesive granular medium, held together by solidified, and hence elastic, capillary bridges. This material has a geometry similar to a wet packing of beads, but with an additional control over the elasticity of the bonds holding the particles together. We show that its mechanical response can be varied over several orders of ...

In this work, we apply the multiscale cohesive method (Zeng and Li [2010]) to simulate fracture and crack propagations in polycrystalline solids. The multiscale cohesive method uses fundamental principles of colloidal physics and micro-mechanics homogenization techniques to link the atomistic binding potential with the mesoscale material properties of the cohesive zone, and hence the method can...

Numerical models of granular materials are useful in tribology, and can be used to predict wear friction contacts. DEM-like simulations model particles third-body, which partly debris from rubbing bodies. It has been shown that the third-body have different flow regimes, depending on their mechanical properties. Among characteristics agglomerate size seems crucial. A method based vortex analysi...

In this work, a novel multiscale cohesive zone model is proposed, in which the bulk material is modeled as a local quasi-continuum medium that obeys the Cauchy–Born rule while the cohesive force and displacement relations inside the cohesive zone are governed by a coarse grained depletion potential. The interface depletion potential is constructed based on the Derjaguin approximation of nonloca...