Crackling vs. continuum-like dynamics in brittle failure

Abstract

We study how the loading rate, specimen geometry and microstructural texture select the dynamics of a crack moving through an heterogeneous elastic material in the quasi-static approximation. We find a transition, fully controlled by two dimensionless variables, between dynamics ruled by continuum fracture mechanics and crackling dynamics. Selection of the latter by the loading, microstructure and specimen parameters is formulated in terms of scaling laws on the power spectrum of crack velocity. This analysis defines the experimental conditions required to observe crackling in fracture. Beyond failure problems, the results extend to a variety of situations described by models of the same universality class, e.g. the dynamics in wetting or of domain walls in amorphous ferromagnets.

5 pages, 4 figures, accepted in Phys. Rev. Lett

References in corpus (2)

• Crackling dynamics in material failure as the signature of a self-organized dynamic phase transition
• Depinning exponents of the driven long-range elastic string

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• Malleability at the extreme nanoscale: Slow and fast quakes of few-body systems