Dynamic Crack-Front Deformations in Cohesive Materials.

Abstract

Crack fronts deform due to heterogeneities, and inspecting these deformations can reveal local variations of material properties, and help predict out-of-plane damage. Current models neglect the influence of a finite dissipation length scale behind the crack tip, called the process zone size. The latter introduces scale effects in the deformation of the crack front, that are mitigated by the dynamics of the crack. We provide and numerically validate a theoretical framework for dynamic crack-front deformations in heterogeneous cohesive materials, a key step toward identifying the effective properties of a microstructure.