Mode-III interfacial crack propagation in heterogeneous media

We monitor optically the propagation of a slow interfacial mode III crack along a heterogeneous weak interface and compare it to mode I loading. Pinning and depinning of the front on local toughness asperities within the process zone are the main mechanisms for fracture roughening. Geometrical properties of the fracture fronts are derived in the framework of self-affine scale invariance and Family-Vicsek scaling. We characterize the small and large scale roughness exponents ζ_{-}=0.6 and ζ_{+}=0.35, the growth exponent at large scale β_{+}=0.58, and the power-law exponent of the local velocity distribution of the fracture fronts, η=2.55. All these analyzed properties are similar to those previously observed for mode I interfacial fractures. We also observe a common power-law decay of the probability distribution function of avalanche area. We finally observe that amplitude of front fluctuations, local rupture velocity correlation in time, and larger size of events highlight more dynamically unstable behavior of mode III crack ruptures.