The present status of research and understanding regarding the dynamics and the statistical
properties of earthquakes is reviewed, mainly from a statistical physical viewpoint. Emphasis …

The failure of materials and interfaces is mediated by cracks, almost singular dissipative
structures that propagate at velocities approaching the speed of sound. Crack initiation and …

We propose a versatile approach to computing the effective toughness of heterogeneous
media. This approach focusses on the material property independent of the details of the …

A powerful semi-analytical method is developed to investigate the impact of tough inclusions
on crack paths and the resulting effective fracture properties. Using a perturbative approach …

We study the adhesion of thin films on rigid substrates in the presence of spatial
heterogeneities. While adhesion is relatively well-understood in the context of …

This paper addresses the question of the homogenization of fracture properties for three-
dimensional disordered brittle solids. The effective toughness, identified as the minimum …

We propose a probabilistic model coupling with the temperature dependent constitutive
relationship to describe the competition between the cleavage and ductile void failure of …

This paper continues the study of the effective adhesion of thin films on rigid substrates in
the presence of spatial heterogeneities started in Xia et al.(2013). In this paper, we focus on …

When a crack interacts with material heterogeneities, its front distorts and adopts complex
tortuous configurations that are reminiscent of the energy barriers encountered during crack …

Adhesion hysteresis can be caused by elastic instabilities that are triggered by surface
roughness or chemical heterogeneity. However, the role of these instabilities in adhesion …