This article reviews the effect of weak interfaces on crack propagation in rock and some
other analogous brittle materials from phenomenon to mechanism. In this review, a variety of …

Crack initiation in brittle materials is not covered by classical fracture mechanics that deals
only with the growth of pre-existing cracks. In order to overcome this deficiency, the Finite …

An order of magnitude tougher than nacre, conch shells are known for being one of the
toughest body armors in nature. However, the complexity of the conch shell architecture …

Fracture experiments in a notched semi-circular bend configuration were conducted to
characterize rate effects and failure micromechanisms of a marble using a servo-hydraulic …

The way that faults transport crustal fluids is important in many fields of earth sciences such
as petroleum geology, geothermal research, volcanology, seismology, and hydrogeology …

Geomaterials (ie rock, sand, soil and concrete) are increasingly being encountered and
used in extreme environments, in terms of the pressure magnitude and the loading rate …

Many rift zones contain composite volcanoes (central volcanoes), most of which are
supplied with magma from shallow crustal magma chambers. Volcanotectonic studies of …

Epoxy nanocomposites of different content of carbon nanofibers up to 1wt.% have been
fabricated under room temperature and refrigerated curing conditions. The composites were …

This paper proposes a diffused approach to approximate failure at interfaces that physically
occupy negligible space compared to the bulk material. For an interface diffused over a …

An adaptive phase-field modeling approach is developed for the dynamic brittle fracture of
composite materials subjected to impact loading. This approach is capable of capturing the …