Thermodynamics of crack nucleation

Abstract

Crack nucleation issue is addressed in a comprehensive micromechanics-based framework allowing to bridge the 2D model with the more realistic 3D representation of a crack. The sudden and abrupt nature of the nucleation process argues in favour of adiabatic conditions rather than isothermal so that the formulation of the energy balance is formulated in terms of internal energy instead of Helmholtz free energy. The proposed theory provides the mean to evaluate the temperature rise as a function of the created entropy at the microscopic scale and the internal energy crack density at the macroscopic one.