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Measuring and Modeling Contractile Drying in Human Stratum Corneum
Published on: March 1, 2017
Effect of disorder on temporal fluctuations in drying-induced cracking
Gabriel Villalobos1, Ferenc Kun, José D Muñoz
1Grupo de Simulación de Sistemas Físicos, Departamento de Física, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Carrera 30 45-03, Ed. 404, Of. 348, Bogota D.C., Colombia. gvillalobosc@bt.unal.edu.co
Physical Review. E, Statistical, Nonlinear, and Soft Matter Physics
|December 21, 2011
Summary
Structural disorder in thin materials causes a phase transition in cracking behavior. At critical disorder levels, avalanche size distributions follow a power law, mimicking continuous phase transitions.
Area of Science:
- Materials Science
- Physics
- Computational Science
Background:
- Thin material cracking under drying is influenced by structural disorder.
- Understanding fracture mechanics in disordered systems is crucial for material design.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the effect of structural disorder on cracking statistics in thin materials during drying using computer simulations.
- To identify phase transitions and critical phenomena in the fracture process.
Main Methods:
- Computer simulations of a thin layer modeled as a triangular lattice of springs.
- Simulating drying by reducing spring lengths and controlling disorder via breaking thresholds.
- Analyzing avalanche size distributions and employing finite-size scaling analysis.
Main Results:
- A phase transition in cracking behavior is observed, controlled by the amount of structural disorder.
- At low disorder, macroscopic cracks dominate, leading to exponential avalanche size distributions.
- At high disorder, microcracks form and merge, also resulting in exponential distributions.
- A critical disorder level (ξ(c)=0.40±0.01) reveals a power-law avalanche size distribution (τ=2.6±0.08), consistent with mean-field theory.
- Finite-size scaling analysis identifies the largest burst as the order parameter and confirms continuous transition behavior.
Conclusions:
- The disorder-induced transition in thin layer breakup is analogous to a continuous phase transition.
- The study provides insights into fracture mechanics and critical phenomena in disordered materials.
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