EVIDENCE FOR THE ROLE OF PROPAGATING STRESS WAVES DURING FRACTURE

During the fracture of a brittle material, the breaking of a bond laun ches a propagating stress wave which may trigger the breaking of other bonds. Such a process might be important just prior to an avalanche o f bond-breaking events when there would be a relatively high density o f bonds on the verge of breaking. This paper reports experiments with a model brittle material where the time and location of individual bon d-breaking events are measured during fracture. Evidence for the role of propagating stress waves has been found.