THE FRACTAL BEHAVIOR OF CRACK-PROPAGATION IN BRITTLE MATERIALS

In this paper we try to show how a reasonable equation for crack propa gation in brittle materials naturally leads to self-affine or statisti cally self-similar failure structures. We argue that the fractal behav iours of crack propagation in brittle materials are in essence determi ned by the scale-invariance of the Fokker-Planck equation. This approa ch provides a good illustration for understanding the microscopic orig in of fractal behaviour in real materials.