Numerical simulations of burst processes in fibre bundles

Abstract

We discuss a very effective numerical method for simulating fibre-bundle models with equal load-sharing and with local load-sharing. Particular attention is paid to the case of the local load-sharing model, in which the critical load xc is defined as the average load per fibre that causes the final complete failure. It is shown that xc to 0 when the size of the system N to infinity . We also show analytically that the power law of the burst size distribution, D( Delta ) varies as Delta - xi , is approximately correct. The exponent xi in the local load-sharing case is not universal, since it depends on the strength distribution as well as on the size of the system.