1994/06/23 by Emily S. C. Ching, Ching, Emily S. C., J. S. Langer +1
Decision Sciences · Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #Chaotic Dynamics (nlin.CD) #FOS: Physical sciences #Fatigue and fracture mechanics #Nuclear Engineering Thermal-Hydraulics #Risk and Safety Analysis #chao-dyn #nlin.CD
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.chao-dyn/9406009
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arxiv created 1994/06/23 · openalex publication_date 1994/06/23 · arxiv updated 2009/11/30 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
In order to study the stability of mode-I fracture, we consider a crack moving along the centerline of a very wide strip and compute its steady-state response to a small, spatially periodic shear stress. We find that, in the presence of this perturbation, the crack remains very nearly straight up to a critical speed vc of about 0.8 vR, where vR is the Rayleigh speed. Deviations from straight-line propagation are suppressed by a factor proportional to W-1/2, where W is the width of the strip. At vc, however, this suppression disappears and the steady-state crack follows the wavy curve along which the shear stress vanishes in the unbroken strip. We interpret this behavior as a loss of stability and discuss its implications for a more complete dynamical theory of fracture propagation.