Fiber Bundle model with Highly Disordered Breaking Thresholds

Abstract

We present a study of the fiber bundle model using equal load sharing dynamics where the breaking thresholds of the fibers are drawn randomly from a power law distribution of the form $p(b)\sim b^{-1}$ in the range $10^{-\beta}$ to $10^{\beta}$. Tuning the value of $\beta$ continuously over a wide range, the critical behavior of the fiber bundle has been studied both analytically as well as numerically. Our results are: (i) The critical load $\sigma_c(\beta,N)$ for the bundle of size $N$ approaches its asymptotic value $\sigma_c(\beta)$ as $\sigma_c(\beta,N) = \sigma_c(\beta)+AN^{-1/\nu(\beta)}$ where $\sigma_c(\beta)$ has been obtained analytically as $\sigma_c(\beta) = 10^\beta/(2\beta e\ln10)$ for $\beta \geq \beta_u = 1/(2\ln10)$, and for $\beta<\beta_u$ the weakest fiber failure leads to the catastrophic breakdown of the entire fiber bundle, similar to brittle materials, leading to $\sigma_c(\beta) = 10^{-\beta}$; (ii) the fraction of broken fibers right before the complete breakdown of the bundle has the form $1-1/(2\beta \ln10)$; (iii) the distribution $D(\Delta)$ of the avalanches of size $\Delta$ follows a power law $D(\Delta)\sim \Delta^{-\xi}$ with $\xi = 5/2$ for $\Delta \gg \Delta_c(\beta)$ and $\xi = 3/2$ for $\Delta \ll \Delta_c(\beta)$, where the crossover avalanche size $\Delta_c(\beta) = 2/(1-e10^{-2\beta})^2$.