From Brittle to Ductile Fracture in Disordered Materials

TL;DR

This paper presents a lattice model that captures the transition from brittle to ductile fracture in disordered materials, revealing how fracture surfaces relate to energy minimization and exhibiting avalanche dynamics during yielding.

Contribution

The study introduces a novel lattice model that describes damage and yielding across the brittle-ductile spectrum, linking fracture surface morphology to energy minimization.

Findings

Fracture surfaces correspond to minimum energy paths.

The model shows a smooth transition from brittle to ductile behavior.

Yielding dynamics display avalanche behavior with power-law distributions.

Abstract

We introduce a lattice model able to describe damage and yielding in heterogeneous materials ranging from brittle to ductile ones. Ductile fracture surfaces, obtained when the system breaks once the strain is completely localized, are shown to correspond to minimum energy surfaces. The similarity of the resulting fracture paths to the limits of brittle fracture or minimum energy surfaces is quantified. The model exhibits a smooth transition from brittleness to ductility. The dynamics of yielding exhibits avalanches with a power-law distribution.