Fracture in Three-Dimensional Fuse Networks

TL;DR

This paper presents large-scale simulations of fracture surfaces in 3D fuse networks, revealing a universal roughness exponent of approximately 0.62, which differs from experimental values and minimal energy surface predictions.

Contribution

It provides the first large-scale numerical analysis of 3D fuse network fracture surfaces, identifying a universal roughness exponent and comparing it with experimental and theoretical values.

Findings

Universal roughness exponent of 0.62 +/- 0.05

Differences in properties between disorder types

Excludes minimal energy surface exponent of 0.41

Abstract

We report on large scale numerical simulations of fracture surfaces using random fuse networks for two very different disorders. There are some properties and exponents that are different for the two distributions, but others, notably the roughness exponents, seem universal. For the universal roughness exponent we found a value of zeta = 0.62 +/- 0.05. In contrast to what is observed in two dimensions, this value is lower than that reported in experimental studies of brittle fractures, and rules out the minimal energy surface exponent, 0.41 +/- 0.01.