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Inhomogeneous flow and fracture of glassy materials

Nature Materials volume 8, pages 601–609 (2009)Cite this article

Abstract

The fracture mechanism of amorphous materials, which are of crucial importance in various fields of engineering, remains a long-standing fundamental problem of science despite intensive efforts over the years. On the basis of a novel rheological model of fracture, we demonstrate that nonlinear behaviour associated with fracture is a consequence of the coupling between density fluctuations and deformation fields: shear-induced enhancement of density fluctuations is self-amplified by the resulting enhancement of dynamic and elastic asymmetry between denser and less-dense regions. This positive feedback may be the origin of fracture. We propose novel criteria for the onset of mechanical instability, extending from ductile to brittle fracture. Their validity is checked by comparing them with numerical solutions of our model and existing experimental results of metallic and polymeric glass formers. The criteria enable us to predict and design fracture behaviour of materials from the pressure dependence of their viscoelastic properties.

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Figure 1: Intuitive explanation on the mechanism of fracture, or shear-induced instability, of glassy materials.
Figure 2: Dynamic phase diagram for a sheared compressible viscoelastic liquid.
Figure 3: Evolution of density fluctuations under shear deformation estimated for Vitreloy-1.
Figure 4: Ductile fracture process of a material under simple shear deformation.
Figure 5: Brittle fracture process under simple shear deformation.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to D. A. Head for a critical reading of our manuscript. This work was partially supported by a grant-in-aid for JSPS Fellows (A.F.) and a grand-in-aid from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Japan (H.T.).

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  1. Institute of Industrial Science, University of Tokyo, 4-6-1 Komaba, Tokyo 153-8505, Japan

    Akira Furukawa & Hajime Tanaka

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  1. Akira Furukawa
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  2. Hajime Tanaka
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Contributions

A.F. and H.T. conceived the mechanism, A.F. carried out simulations and analysis and A.F. and H.T. wrote the manuscript.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Akira Furukawa or Hajime Tanaka.

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Furukawa, A., Tanaka, H. Inhomogeneous flow and fracture of glassy materials. Nature Mater 8, 601–609 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat2468

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