On the Shrimali and Lopez-Pamies theory on viscoelastic fracture mechanics

dear collegues

   I have been attracted recently by a theory from Shrimali and Lopez-Pamies which is based on experimental evidence obtained from Suo's group in Harvard in 2012 in a (limited, but significant) set of experiments on rubber.   The theory assumes that the stretch to nucleating a crack is constant and independent on stretch rate.  The theory is then built on that, to predict the increase of fracture energy with rate.

  It is interesting that in the case to the very standard case of linear materials, I obtain from the classical Schapery cohesive model that the stretch at nucleation is FAR from rate independent and can vary by a factor of 30-100 for typical rubbers, and should decrease with rate!    This seems in contrasts to Suo's findings and also some other experiments including some done here in Bari and some from Creton in Paris....  So Lopez-Pamies theory is interesting and worth investigating. 

  Is anyone working on this area?

Regards, Prof. Michele Ciavarella 

A first paper has been accepted in J. Appl. Mech. here preprint attached. 

Comparison with Schapery https://www.researchgate.net/publication/374144999