Hydraulic fracture and toughening of a brittle layer bonded to a hydrogel

Author (s): Lucantonio, A.; Noselli, G.; Trepat, X.; DeSimone, A.; Arroyo, M.
Journal: Physical Review Letters

Volume: 115
Date: 2015

Abstract:
Brittle materials propagate opening cracks under tension. When stress increases beyond a critical magnitude, then quasistatic crack propagation becomes unstable. In the presence of several precracks, a brittle material always propagates only the weakest crack, leading to catastrophic failure. Here, we show that all these features of brittle fracture are fundamentally modified when the material susceptible to cracking is bonded to a hydrogel, a common situation in biological tissues. In the presence of the hydrogel, the brittle material can fracture in compression and can hydraulically resist cracking in tension. Furthermore, the poroelastic coupling regularizes the crack dynamics and enhances material toughness by promoting multiple cracking.

Journal paper (from the publisher)  
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Bibtex:

@article{PhysRevLett.115.188105,
  title = {Hydraulic Fracture and Toughening of a Brittle Layer Bonded to a Hydrogel},
  author = {Lucantonio, Alessandro and Noselli, Giovanni and Trepat, Xavier and DeSimone, Antonio and Arroyo, Marino},
  journal = {Phys. Rev. Lett.},
  volume = {115},
  issue = {18},
  pages = {188105},
  numpages = {5},
  year = {2015},
  month = {Oct},
  publisher = {American Physical Society},
  doi = {10.1103/PhysRevLett.115.188105},
  url = {http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.115.188105}
}