Anisotropic self-affine properties of experimental fracture surfaces

TL;DR

This study investigates the anisotropic self-affine scaling properties of fracture surfaces across different materials, revealing universal exponents related to roughness, growth, and dynamics that characterize their complex morphology.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive 2D correlation analysis revealing universal anisotropic scaling exponents for fracture surfaces across diverse materials.

Findings

Fracture surfaces are self-affine with anisotropic scaling.

Three independent exponents describe the scaling: zeta, beta, and z.

Exponents are conjectured to be universal across materials.

Abstract

The scaling properties of post-mortem fracture surfaces of brittle (silica glass), ductile (aluminum alloy) and quasi-brittle (mortar and wood) materials have been investigated. These surfaces, studied far from the initiation, were shown to be self-affine. However, the Hurst exponent measured along the crack direction is found to be different from the one measured along the propagation direction. More generally, a complete description of the scaling properties of these surfaces call for the use of the 2D height-height correlation function that involves three exponents zeta = 0.75, beta = 0.6 and z = 1.25 independent of the material considered as well as of the crack growth velocity. These exponents are shown to correspond to the roughness, growth and dynamic exponents respectively, as introduced in interface growth models. They are conjectured to be universal.