Fracture process of composite materials in a spring network model.

Abstract

We analyze a two-dimensional spring network model comprising breakable and unbreakable springs. Computer simulations showed this system to exhibit intermittent stress drops in a larger strain regime, and these stress drops resulted in ductilelike behavior. The scaling analysis reveals that the avalanche size distribution demonstrates a cutoff, depending on its internal structure. This study also investigates the relationship between cluster growth and stress drop, and we show that the amount of stress drop increases in terms of power law, corresponding to crack growth. The crack length distribution also demonstrates a cutoff depending on its internal structure. The results show that both the cluster growth-stress drop relationship and the crack size distribution are scaled by the quantity related to the internal structure, and the relevance of the exponent that scales the cluster growth-stress drop relationship to the exponent that scales crack size distribution is verified.