The influence of internal stresses on the fracture of heterogeneous media

Abstract

Studies numerically the influence of random internal stresses on the fracture properties of brittle solids. The authors consider an electrical analog network model where internal stresses are the only source of disorder. They study the scaling of the fracture properties with the system size and with the degree of damage. They argue that some properties of this model can be compared with previously studied models where disorder was introduced through different properties of the constituents. In addition, internal stresses in a purely brittle system lead to new effects at a coarse-grained level such as an apparent plasticity, absent at the local level.