Blending stiffness and strength disorder can stabilize fracture.

Abstract

Quasibrittle behavior, where macroscopic failure is preceded by stable damaging and intensive cracking activity, is a desired feature of materials because it makes fracture predictable. Based on a fiber-bundle model with global load sharing we show that blending strength and stiffness disorder of material elements leads to the stabilization of fracture, i.e., samples that are brittle when one source of disorder is present become quasibrittle as a consequence of blending. We derive a condition of quasibrittle behavior in terms of the joint distribution of the two sources of disorder. Breaking bursts have a power-law size distribution of exponent 5/2 without any crossover to a lower exponent when the amount of disorder is gradually decreased. The results have practical relevance for the design of materials to increase the safety of constructions.