https://doi.org/10.1140/epjst/e2007-00192-9
Slow crack growth: Models and experiments
Laboratoire de Physique, CNRS UMR 5672, École Normale Supérieure de Lyon, 46 allée d'Italie, 69364 Lyon Cedex 07, France
Corresponding author: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
The properties of slow crack growth in brittle materials are analyzed both theoretically and experimentally. We propose a model based on a thermally activated rupture process. Considering a 2D spring network submitted to an external load and to thermal noise, we show that a preexisting crack in the network may slowly grow because of stress fluctuations. An analytical solution is found for the evolution of the crack length as a function of time, the time to rupture and the statistics of the crack jumps. These theoretical predictions are verified by studying experimentally the subcritical growth of a single crack in thin sheets of paper. A good agreement between the theoretical predictions and the experimental results is found. In particular, our model suggests that the statistical stress fluctuations trigger rupture events at a nanometric scale corresponding to the diameter of cellulose microfibrils.
© EDP Sciences, Springer-Verlag, 2007
