How Supertough Gels Break.

Phys Rev Lett

The Racah Institute of Physics, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, 91904, Israel.

Published: September 2018

Fracture of highly stretched materials challenges our view of how things break. We directly visualize rupture of tough double-network gels at >50% strain. During fracture, crack tip shapes obey a x∼y^{1.6} power law, in contrast to the parabolic profile observed in low-strain cracks. A new length scale ℓ emerges from the power law; we show that ℓ scales directly with the stored elastic energy and diverges when the crack velocity approaches the shear wave speed. Our results show that double-network gels undergo brittle fracture and provide a testing ground for large-strain fracture mechanics.

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http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.121.135501DOI Listing

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