Physical Aspects of Fracture

The main scope of this Cargese NATO Advanced Study Institute (June 5-17 2000) was to bring together a number of international experts, covering a large spectrum of the various Physical Aspects of Fracture. As a matter of fact, lecturers as well as participants were coming from various scientific communities: mechanics, physics, materials science, with the common objective of progressing towards a multi-scale description of fracture. This volume includes papers on most materials of practical interest: from concrete to ceramics through metallic alloys, glasses, polymers and composite materials. The classical fields of damage and fracture mechanisms are addressed (critical and sub-critical quasi-static crack propagation, stress corrosion, fatigue, fatigue-corrosion . . . . as well as dynamic fracture). Brittle and ductile fractures are considered and a balance has been carefully kept between experiments, simulations and theoretical models, and between the contributions of the various communities. New topics in damage and fracture mechanics - the effect of disorder and statistical aspects, dynamic fracture, friction and fracture of interfaces - were also explored. This large overview on the Physical Aspects of Fracture shows that the old barriers built between the different scales will soon "fracture". It is no more unrealistic to imagine that a crack initiated through a molecular dynamics description could be propagated at the grain level thanks to dislocation dynamics included in a crystal plasticity model, itself implemented in a finite element code. Linking what happens at the atomic scale to fracture of structures as large as a dam is the new emerging challenge.

Inhalt
Opening overview (New trends in Fracture Mechanics).- Some studies of crack dynamics.- Brittle fracture.- Fracture of metals: Part I: Cleavage Fracture.- The Weibull law: a model of wide applicability.- Brittle fracture of snow.- Random fuse networks: a review.- On modelling of winged cracks forming under compression.- Continuum damage and scaling of fracture.- Damage of concrete: application of network simulations.- Degradation in brittle materials under static loadings.- Study of the brittle-to-ductile transition in ceramics and cermets by mechanical spectroscopy.- Ductile fracture.- Fracture of metals: Part II: Ductile Fracture.- Fracture mechanics of metals: some features of crack initiation and crack propagation.- A model of damage in an austenitic stainless steel by high temperature creep.- Interrelation between constitutive laws and fracture in the vicinity of friction surfaces.- Polycrystalline plasticity under small strains.- Fracture and mesoscopic plastic deformation.- Strain localization in single crystals and polycrystals.- Fatigue and stress corrosion.- Modelling in fatigue. Remarks on scales of material description: application to high cycle fatigue.- The influence of microstructure and moist environment on fatigue crack propagation in metallic alloys.- Cyclic strain localization in fatigued metals.- Environmental effects on fatigue in metals.- Stress corrosion of glass.- Dynamics of fracture.- Experimental challenges in the investigation of dynamic fracture of brittle materials.- Experiments in dynamic fracture.- Propagation of an interfacial crack front in a heterogeneous medium: Experimental observations.