2018/05/18 by David Fernández Castellanos, David Fernandez Castellanos, Michael Zaiser
Engineering · Environmental Science · Mathematics · Physics and Astronomy · #Aftershock #Composite material #Creep #Exponent #Geology #Granular flow and fluidized beds #Landslides and related hazards #Materials science #Mathematical analysis #Mathematics #Mechanics #Mesoscale meteorology #Physics #Plasticity #Seismology #Shear band #Singularity #Statistical physics #Statistics #Stochastic modelling #Strain rate #Theoretical and Computational Physics #cond-mat.dis-nn #cond-mat.mtrl-sci
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.121.125501
published as Phys. Rev. Lett. 121, 125501 (2018) · 5 pages, 6 figures
arxiv created 2018/05/18 · openalex publication_date 2018/09/17 · arxiv updated 2018/09/26 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We present a mesoscale elastoplastic model of creep in disordered materials, which considers temperature-dependent stochastic activation of localized deformation events that are coupled by internal stresses, leading to collective avalanche dynamics. We generalize this stochastic plasticity model by introducing damage in terms of a local strength that decreases, on statistical average, with increasing local plastic strain. The model captures failure in terms of strain localization in a catastrophic shear band concomitant with a finite-time singularity of the creep rate. The statistics of avalanches in the run-up to failure is characterized by a decreasing avalanche exponent τ that, at failure, approaches the value τ=1.5 typical of a critical branching process. The average avalanche rate exhibits an inverse Omori law as a function of time to failure. The distribution of interavalanche times turns out to be consistent with the epidemic-type aftershock sequences (ETAS) model of earthquake statistics.