Fragmentation of shells

TL;DR

This study combines theoretical modeling and experiments to analyze how brittle shells break into fragments, revealing a new universality class of fragmentation with power law size distributions linked to phase transitions.

Contribution

It introduces a 3D discrete element model for shell fragmentation and identifies a phase transition underlying different fragmentation behaviors.

Findings

Power law fragment size distributions observed in experiments.

Fragmentation exhibits a phase transition nature, abrupt for explosion, continuous for impact.

Shell fragmentation defines a new universality class.

Abstract

We present a theoretical and experimental study of the fragmentation of closed thin shells made of a disordered brittle material. Experiments were performed on brown and white hen egg-shells under two different loading conditions: impact with a hard wall and explosion by a combustible mixture both give rise to power law fragment size distributions. A three-dimensional discrete element model of shells is worked out. Based on simulations of the model we give evidence that power law fragment mass distributions arise due to an underlying phase transition which proved to be abrupt for explosion and continuous for impact. We demonstrate that the fragmentation of closed shells defines a new universality class of fragmentation phenomena.