Gilles A. Francfort

Nucleation and propagation of brittle fracture as a constrained energy minimization problem

This paper presents a macroscopic, or continuum, theory aimed at describing when, where, and why cracks nucleate and propagate in nominally elastic brittle materials under monotonic, quasi-static, but otherwise arbitrary mechanical loads. Motivated by recent insights, the proposed sharp theory posits that: \emph{cracks...