crack fronts

In this work, we show that the combination of material quenched disorder (of finite strength/amplitude and correlation length) and a 2D tip-splitting instability (that gives rise to extra fracture surfaces) is at the heart of the spatiotemporal dynamics of cracks in 3D. Specifically, it is shown to account for the widely observed limiting (terminal) velocity of cracks, mirror-mist-hackle sequence of morphological transitions, crack macro-branching and a 3D-to-2D transition, out-of-plane crack front waves and the properties of micro-branches.  

Following the previous Blog entry on 3D fracture and out-of-plane crack structures: the essential role of material disorder, we add here a related manuscript (see also attached PDF):

Size selection of crack front defects: Multiple fracture-plane interactions and intrinsic lengthscales

In this pair of preprints (see also attached PDFs):

Quenched disorder and instability control dynamic fracture in three dimensions

Facet formation in slow three-dimensional fracture