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Updated: Jun 14, 2026

Mechanoluminescent Visualization of Crack Propagation for Joint Evaluation
Published on: January 6, 2023
Acquisition of inertia by a moving crack
Tamar Goldman1, Ariel Livne, Jay Fineberg
1Racah Institute of Physics, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem 91904, Israel.
Abstract:
We experimentally investigate the dynamics of "simple" tensile cracks. Within an effectively infinite medium, a crack's dynamics perfectly correspond to inertialess behavior predicted by linear elastic fracture mechanics. Once a crack interacts with waves that it generated at earlier times, this description breaks down. Cracks then acquire inertia and sluggishly accelerate. Crack inertia increases with crack speed v and diverges as v approaches its limiting value. We show that these dynamics are in excellent accord with an equation of motion derived in the limit of an infinite strip [M. Marder, Phys. Rev. Lett. 66, 2484 (1991)].
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