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Failure time and critical behaviour of fracture precursors in heterogeneous materials

A. Guarino·S. Ciliberto·A. Garcimartin·M. Zei·R. Scorretti
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Abstract

The acoustic emission of fracture precursors, and the failure time of samples of heterogeneous materials (wood, fiberglass) are studied as a function of the load features and geometry. It is shown that in these materials the failure time is predicted with a good accuracy by a model of microcrack nucleation proposed by Pomeau. We find that the time interval $% δt$ between events (precursors) and the energy $\varepsilon$ are power law distributed and that the exponents of these power laws depend on the load history and on the material. In contrast, the cumulated acoustic energy $E$ presents a critical divergency near the breaking time $τ$ which is $% E\sim \left( \frac{τ-t}τ\right) ^{-γ}$. The positive exponent $% γ$ is independent, within error bars, on all the experimental parameters.

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A. Guarino, S. Ciliberto, A. Garcimartin, M. Zei, R. Scorretti. 2002-01-15. Failure time and critical behaviour of fracture precursors in heterogeneous materials. https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb%2Fe20020075

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