Extreme cavity expansion in soft solids: Damage without fracture
Name
eaaz0418.full.pdf
Description
Published version
Size
1.12 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
746b95e3d6ebbc59428ad1a5982e3843
Author(s)
Kim, Jin Young
Liu, Zezhou
Weon, Byung Mook
Cohen, Tal
Hui, Chung-Yuen
Dufresne, Eric R.
Style, Robert W.
Date Issued
March 2020
Journal
Science Advances
Publisher
American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
Citation
Kim, Jin Young, et al. "Extreme cavity expansion in soft solids: Damage without fracture." Science Advances, 6, 13, (March 2020) eaaz0418. © 2020 The Author(s)
Version
Final published version
Abstract
Cavitation is a common damage mechanism in soft solids. Here, we study this using a phase separation technique in stretched, elastic solids to controllably nucleate and grow small cavities by several orders of magnitude. The ability to make stable cavities of different sizes, as well as the huge range of accessible strains, allows us to systematically study the early stages of cavity expansion. Cavities grow in a scale-free manner, accompanied by irreversible bond breakage that is distributed around the growing cavity rather than being localized to a crack tip. Furthermore, cavities appear to grow at constant driving pressure. This has strong analogies with the plasticity that occurs surrounding a growing void in ductile metals. In particular, we find that, although elastomers are normally considered as brittle materials, small-scale cavity expansion is more like a ductile process. Our results have broad implications for understanding and controlling failure in soft solids.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aaz0418
