1212.1551 (Vincent Démery et al.)

From microstructural features to effective toughness in disordered
brittle solids    [PDF]

Vincent Démery, Laurent Ponson, Alberto Rosso

The relevant parameters at the microstructure scale that govern the macroscopic resistance of heterogeneous materials are investigated theoretically. Focusing on brittle failure of disordered solids modeled as the propagation of a crack front in a random medium, our study reveals two regimes: in the collective pinning regime, the critical failure load can be expressed as a function of a few parameters only that can be extracted from the material microstructural features; in the individual pinning regime, the passage from micro to macroscale is more subtle and the full distribution of local toughness is required to be predictive. Such a rationalization of the disorder induced toughening in brittle failure open new perspectives for the design of stronger materials.

View original: http://arxiv.org/abs/1212.1551