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Damage Scaling Laws at Crack Tip in Disordered Materials.
Wenbin Liu1, Huiling Duan2, Jian Lu1,3
1City University of Hong Kong, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Hong Kong, China.
Physical Review Letters
|March 20, 2026
Summary
Material disorder influences crack propagation by revealing two damage scaling laws. A crack-tip equiprobable damage zone (EDZ) emerges, with its size increasing with disorder, impacting fracture mechanics.
Area of Science:
- Physics
- Materials Science
- Computational Modeling
Background:
- Crack propagation in disordered solids is complex.
- Understanding damage mechanisms is crucial for material integrity.
Purpose of the Study:
- Investigate damage mechanisms governing crack propagation in disordered solids.
- Characterize the role of material disorder in fracture dynamics.
Main Methods:
- Utilized random lattice models for simulations.
- Analyzed damage scaling laws and critical damage density near crack tips.
Main Results:
- Identified two successive damage scaling laws at the crack tip (exponents ~-0.5 and ~-0.25).
- Uncovered a crack-tip equiprobable damage zone (EDZ) whose size correlates with material disorder.
- Observed statistical uniformity of damage within the EDZ, approximated by a binomial distribution.
Conclusions:
- Material disorder dictates crack propagation through regulation of damage zones.
- The EDZ highlights the intrinsic stochasticity of fracture in disordered materials.
- Findings offer new physical insights into crack-tip damage and fracture mechanics.
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