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Updated: Aug 6, 2026

A Method for Studying the Temperature Dependence of Dynamic Fracture and Fragmentation
Published on: June 28, 2015
Dynamics of fracture in drying suspensions
E R Dufresne1, D J Stark, N A Greenblatt
1DEAS, Department of Physics, and Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA. eric.dufresne@yale.edu
Abstract:
We investigate the dynamics of fracture in drying films of colloidal silica. Water loss quenches the nanoparticle dispersions to form a liquid-saturated elastic network of particles that relieves drying-induced strain by cracking. These cracks display intriguing intermittent motion originating from the deformation of arrested crack tips and aging of the elastic network. The dynamics of a single crack exhibits a universal evolution, described by a balance of the driving elastic power with the sum of interfacial power and the viscous dissipation rate of flowing interstitial fluid.
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