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On Absence of Quantitative Correlations Between Strength and Stiffness in Microcracking Materials

  • Letters in Fracture and Micromechanics
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Abstract

We show, by numerical simulations on crack arrays, that there is no stable quantitative correlation between strength of a brittle microcracking material and its effective elastic stiffness. The reason is that fracture processes are controlled by “details” of microcrack field geometry – such as local clusters of closely spaced cracks – to which the stiffness, being a volume average quantity, is almost insensitive.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Tufts University, Medford, MA, 02155, USA

    Anthony Caiulo & Mark Kachanov

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  1. Anthony Caiulo
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  2. Mark Kachanov
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Correspondence to Mark Kachanov.

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Caiulo, A., Kachanov, M. On Absence of Quantitative Correlations Between Strength and Stiffness in Microcracking Materials. Int J Fract 164, 155–158 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10704-010-9486-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10704-010-9486-5

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