Eur. Phys. J. B 47, 85-91 (2005)
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2005-00292-2

Damage growth in random fuse networks

Helsinki University of Technology, Laboratory of Physics, P.O. Box 1100, 02015 HUT, Finland

Corresponding author: ^a mja@fyslab.hut.fi

Received: 28 January 2004
Revised: 6 May 2005
Published online: 21 September 2005

Abstract

The correlations among elements that break in random fuse network fracture are studied, with disorder strong enough to allow for volume damage before final failure. The growth of microfractures is found to be uncorrelated above a lengthscale, that increases as the final breakdown approaches. Since the fuse network strength decreases with sample size, asymptotically the process resembles more and more mean-field-like (“democratic fiber bundle”) fracture. This is found from the microscopic dynamics of avalanches or microfractures, from a study of damage localization via entropy, and from the final damage profile. In particular, the last one is statistically constant, except exactly at the final crack zone, in spite of the fact that the fracture surfaces are self-affine. This also implies that the correlations in damage are not extensive.