Abstract
We study experimentally the propagation of an inter-facial crack through a weak plane of a transparent Plexiglas block. The toughness is controlled artificially by a sand blasting procedure and fluctuates locally in space like an uncorrelated random noise. The block is fractured in mode I at low speed (10-7 — 10-4m/s). The crack front is observed optically with a microscope and a high resolution digital camera for pinned fronts or a fast digital camera for local dynamics of fronts. During the propagation, the front is pinned by micro-regions of high toughness and becomes rough. Roughness of the crack front is analyzed in terms of self-affinity. The roughness exponent of trapped fronts is shown to be 0.63 ± 0.05. During propagation, bursts of the front are described as an interface growth process. The dynamical exponent of a Family-Vicsek scaling is measured to: z ≈ 1.15. Velocity fluctuations are measured in the space-time domain.
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Schmittbuhl, J., Delaplace, A., Måløy, K.J. (2001). Propagation Of An Interfacial Crack Front In A Heterogeneous Medium: Experimental Observations. In: Bouchaud, E., Jeulin, D., Prioul, C., Roux, S. (eds) Physical Aspects of Fracture. NATO Science Series, vol 32. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-0656-9_25
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-0656-9_25
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