Crackling versus continuumlike dynamics in brittle failure

Loss of memory of an elastic line on its way to limit cycles

Oscillatory-driven amorphous materials forget their initial configuration and converge to limit cycles. Here we investigate this memory loss under a nonquasistatic drive in a minimal model system, with quenched disorder and memory encoded in a spatial pattern, where oscillating protocols are formally replaced by a positive-velocity drive. We consider an elastic line driven athermally in a quenched disorder with biperiodic boundary conditions and tunable system size, thus controlling the area swept by the line per cycle as would the oscillation amplitude. The convergence to disorder-dependent limit cycle is strongly coupled to the nature of its velocity dynamics depending on system size. Based on the corresponding phase diagram, we propose a generic scenario for memory formation in disordered systems under finite driving rate.

Controlling crackling dynamics by triggering low-intensity avalanches

We examine the effect of small, spatially localized excitations applied periodically in different manners, on the crackling dynamics of a brittle crack driven slowly in a heterogeneous solid. When properly adjusted, these excitations are observed to radically modify avalanche statistics and considerably limit the magnitude of the largest events. Surprisingly, this does not require information on the front loading state at the time of excitation; applying it either at a random location or at the most loaded point gives the same results. Subsequently, we unravel how the excitation amplitude, spatial extent, and frequency govern the effect. We find that the excitation efficiency is ruled by a single reduced parameter, namely the injected power per unit front length; the suppression of extreme avalanches is maximum at a well-defined optimal value of this control parameter. analysis opens another way to control the largest events in crackling dynamics. Beyond fracture problems, it may be relevant for crackling systems described by models of the same universality class, such as the wetting of heterogeneous substrates or magnetic walls in amorphous magnets.

Spatial Clustering of Depinning Avalanches in Presence of Long-Range Interactions

Disordered elastic interfaces display avalanche dynamics at the depinning transition. For short-range interactions, avalanches correspond to compact reorganizations of the interface well described by the depinning theory. For long-range elasticity, an avalanche is a collection of spatially disconnected clusters. In this Letter we determine the scaling properties of the clusters and relate them to the roughness exponent of the interface. The key observation of our analysis is the identification of a Bienaymé-Galton-Watson process describing the statistics of the number of clusters. Our work has concrete importance for experimental applications where the cluster statistics is a key probe of avalanche dynamics.

Universal Scaling of the Velocity Field in Crack Front Propagation

The propagation of a crack front in disordered materials is jerky and characterized by bursts of activity, called avalanches. These phenomena are the manifestation of an out-of-equilibrium phase transition originated by the disorder. As a result avalanches display universal scalings which are, however, difficult to characterize in experiments at a finite drive. Here, we show that the correlation functions of the velocity field along the front allow us to extract the critical exponents of the transition and to identify the universality class of the system. We employ these correlations to characterize the universal behavior of the transition in simulations and in an experiment of crack propagation. This analysis is robust, efficient, and can be extended to all systems displaying avalanche dynamics.

Seismiclike organization of avalanches in a driven long-range elastic string as a paradigm of brittle cracks

Crack growth in heterogeneous materials sometimes exhibits crackling dynamics, made of successive impulselike events with specific scale-invariant time and size organization reminiscent of earthquakes. Here, we examine this dynamics in a model which identifies the crack front with a long-range elastic line driven in a random potential. We demonstrate that, under some circumstances, fracture grows intermittently, via scale-free impulse organized into aftershock sequences obeying the fundamental laws of statistical seismology. We examine the effects of the driving rate and system overall stiffness (unloading factor) onto the scaling exponents and cutoffs associated with the time and size organization. We unravel the specific conditions required to observe a seismiclike organization in the crack propagation problem. Beyond failure problems, implications of these results to other crackling systems are finally discussed.

Crackling to periodic dynamics in granular media

We study the local and global dynamics of sheared granular materials in a stick-slip experiment, using a slider and a spring. The system crackles, with intermittent slip avalanches, or exhibits irregular or periodic dynamics, depending on the shear rate and loading stiffness. The global force on the slider during shearing captures the transitions from the crackling to the periodic regime. We deduce a dynamic phase diagram as a function of the shear rate and the loading stiffness and associated scaling laws. Using photoelastic particles, we also capture the grain-scale stress evolution, and investigate the microscopic behavior in the different regimes.

Compressive Failure as a Critical Transition: Experimental Evidence and Mapping onto the Universality Class of Depinning

Acoustic emission (AE) measurements performed during the compressive loading of concrete samples with three different microstructures (aggregate sizes and porosity) and four sample sizes revealed that failure is preceded by an acceleration of the rate of fracturing events, power law distributions of AE energies and durations near failure, and a divergence of the fracturing correlation length and time towards failure. This argues for an interpretation of compressive failure of disordered materials as a critical transition between an intact and a failed state. The associated critical exponents were found to be independent of sample size and microstructural disorder and close to mean-field depinning values. Although compressive failure differs from classical depinning in several respects, including the nature of the elastic redistribution kernel, an analogy between the two processes allows deriving (finite-) sizing effects on strength that match our extensive data set. This critical interpretation of failure may have also important consequences in terms of natural hazards forecasting, such as volcanic eruptions, landslides, or cliff collapses.

Crack growth in heterogeneous brittle solids: intermittency, crackling and induced seismicity

Crack growth is the basic mechanism leading to the failure of brittle materials. Engineering addresses this problem within the framework of continuum mechanics, which links deterministically the crack motion to the applied loading. Such an idealization, however, fails in several situations and in particular cannot capture the highly erratic (earthquake-like) dynamics sometimes observed in slowly fracturing heterogeneous solids. Here, we examine this problem by means of innovative experiments of crack growth in artificial rocks of controlled microstructure. The dynamical events are analysed at both global and local scales, from the time fluctuation of the spatially averaged crack speed and the induced acoustic emission, respectively. Their statistics are characterized and compared with the predictions of a recent approach mapping fracture onset to the depinning of an elastic interface. Finally, the overall time-size organization of the events is characterized to shed light on the mechanisms underlying the scaling laws observed in seismology.This article is part of the theme issue 'Statistical physics of fracture and earthquakes'.

Aftershock sequences and seismic-like organization of acoustic events produced by a single propagating crack

Brittle fractures of inhomogeneous materials like rocks, concrete, or ceramics are of two types: Nominally brittle and driven by the propagation of a single dominant crack or quasi-brittle and resulting from the accumulation of many microcracks. The latter goes along with acoustic noise, whose analysis has revealed that events form aftershock sequences obeying characteristic laws reminiscent of those in seismology. Yet, their origin lacks explanation. Here we show that such a statistical organization is not only specific to the multi-cracking situations of quasi-brittle failure and seismology, but also rules the acoustic events produced by a propagating crack. This simpler situation has permitted us to relate these laws to the overall scale-free distribution of inter-event time and energy and to uncover their selection by the crack speed. These results provide a comprehensive picture of how acoustic events are organized upon material failure in the most fundamental of fracture states: single propagating cracks.

The multiple microcracking events underlying damage in inhomogeneous brittle materials form characteristic aftershocks sequences obeying similar laws to those in seismology. Here, Barés et al. evidence and explain the same organization in the acoustic noise produced by a single propagating crack.

Crack propagation through disordered materials as a depinning transition: A critical test of the theory

The dynamics of a planar crack propagating within a brittle disordered material is investigated numerically. The fracture front evolution is described as the depinning of an elastic line in a random field of toughness. The relevance of this approach is critically tested through the comparison of the roughness front properties, the statistics of avalanches, and the local crack velocity distribution with experimental results. Our simulations capture the main features of the fracture front evolution as measured experimentally. However, some experimental observations such as the velocity distribution are not consistent with the behavior of an elastic line close to the depinning transition. This discrepancy suggests the presence of another failure mechanism not included in our model of brittle failure.

Fluctuations of global energy release and crackling in nominally brittle heterogeneous fracture

The temporal evolution of mechanical energy and spatially averaged crack speed are both monitored in slowly fracturing artificial rocks. Both signals display an irregular burstlike dynamics, with power-law distributed fluctuations spanning a broad range of scales. Yet, the elastic power released at each time step is proportional to the global velocity all along the process, which enables defining a material-constant fracture energy. We characterize the intermittent dynamics by computing the burst statistics. This latter displays the scale-free features signature of crackling dynamics, in qualitative but not quantitative agreement with the depinning interface models derived for fracture problems. The possible sources of discrepancies are pointed out and discussed.