Failure time and microcrack nucleation

TL;DR

This paper investigates the failure time of heterogeneous materials like wood and fiberglass under stress, demonstrating that a microcrack nucleation model accurately predicts failure and reveals critical crack growth features near failure.

Contribution

It applies Pomeau's microcrack nucleation model to heterogeneous materials and highlights critical crack growth behavior as failure approaches.

Findings

Failure time is well predicted by the microcrack nucleation model.

Crack growth exhibits critical features near failure.

Model applicability extends to materials like wood and fiberglass.

Abstract

The failure time of samples of heterogeneous materials (wood, fiberglass) is studied as a function of the applied stress. It is shown that in these materials the failure time is predicted with a good accuracy by a model of microcrack nucleation proposed by Pomeau. It is also shown that the crack growth process presents critical features when the failure time is approached.