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Summary: VOLUME 76, NUMBER 9 P H Y S I C A L R E V I E W L E T T E R S 26 FEBRUARY 1996
Stability of Quasiequilibrium Cracks under Uniaxial Loading
Mokhtar Adda-Bedia and Martine Ben Amar
Laboratoire de Physique Statistique,* Ecole Normale Supérieure, 24 rue Lhomond, F-75231 Paris Cedex 05, France
(Received 8 August 1995)
We propose a linear stability analysis of a straight crack subjected to uniaxial loading. We argue that,
under quasistatic extension conditions, the crack propagation follows a straight path until the creation of
a "physical" shear stress at its tip. This instability leads to a deviation of the fracture from the direction
perpendicular to the applied loading. We compare our tip criterion instability with both experimental
results and previous theoretical models.
PACS numbers: 62.20.Mk, 46.30.Nz, 81.40.Np
Recently, crack propagation problems have attracted at-
tention of the physics community. This renewal of in-
terest was essentially caused by experimental realizations
of both equilibrium [1] and dynamic fracture mechanics
[2]. From the theoretical side, the study of crack propaga-
tion can be subdivided in two classes. First, for the study
of dynamical fracture formation, a long-standing problem
exists. According to theory [3], cracks in brittle materi-
als are supposed to accelerate up to the Rayleigh wave
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