Hydraulic Fracture and Toughening of a Brittle Layer Bonded to a Hydrogel

Brittle materials propagate opening cracks under tension. When stress increases beyond a critical magnitude, then quasistatic crack propagation becomes unstable. In the presence of several precracks, a brittle material always propagates only the weakest crack, leading to catastrophic failure. Here,...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Lucantonio, Alessandro, Noselli, Giovanni, Trepat Guixer, Xavier, DeSimone, Antonio, Arroyo, Marino
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2015
País:España
Institución:Universidad de Barcelona
Repositorio:Dipòsit Digital de la UB
OAI Identifier:oai:diposit.ub.edu:2445/132854
Acceso en línea:https://hdl.handle.net/2445/132854
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Polímers
Fracturació hidràulica
Polymers
Hydraulic fracturing
Descripción
Sumario:Brittle materials propagate opening cracks under tension. When stress increases beyond a critical magnitude, then quasistatic crack propagation becomes unstable. In the presence of several precracks, a brittle material always propagates only the weakest crack, leading to catastrophic failure. Here, we show that all these features of brittle fracture are fundamentally modified when the material susceptible to cracking is bonded to a hydrogel, a common situation in biological tissues. In the presence of the hydrogel, the brittle material can fracture in compression and can hydraulically resist cracking in tension. Furthermore, the poroelastic coupling regularizes the crack dynamics and enhances material toughness by promoting multiple cracking.