Self-affine properties of fractures in brittle materials

A. Parisi (a,b) and G. Caldarelli (a)

(a) INFM-Unità di Roma 1 "La Sapienza", P.le A. Moro 2, 00185, Roma, Italy
(b) Department of Physics, University of Warwick, CV4 7AL Coventry, UK

Abstract

We present the result of numerical simulations for a fracturing process in a three-dimensional solid subjected to a mode-I load in a quasi-static regime. The solid is described using the Born model on an FCC lattice with a starting notch. We obtain a value of the roughness exponent 0.5 in agreement with the value measured in microfracturing experiments. Our result supports the idea that at small length scales the fracturing process can be considered as quasi-static, which is the basic of the possible application of the model of line depinning to the case of fractures.

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