Issue 28, 2021

On the relationship between cutting and tearing in soft elastic solids

Abstract

Unique observations of cutting energy in silicone elastomers motivate a picture of soft fracture that qualitatively and quantitatively links far-field tearing with push cutting for the first time. For blades of decreasing tip radii, the cutting energy decreases until it reaches a plateau that suggests a threshold for failure. A super-molecular damage zone, necessary for new surface creation, is defined using the tip radius at the onset of this threshold. Modifying the classic Lake–Thomas theory, in which failure occurs within a molecular plane, to this super-molecular zone provides order-of-magnitude agreement with the cutting energy threshold. Together, the threshold fracture energy and damage length scale define criteria for failure that, when implemented in finite element simulation, quantitatively reproduce the increase in cutting energy with increasing blade radius outside of the plateau. The rate of increase depends on the constitutive response of the material, with more neo-Hookean solids requiring a larger failure force per incremental increase in blade radius as observed experimentally. This combination of a geometry-independent failure threshold (from the cutting energy plateau) and a need to account for the role of material deformability in the stress concentration found at the crack tip (from the rate of cutting energy increase with blade radius) align with the discovery of a new dimensionless group. This new parameter proportionally maps cutting energy to the energy required to tear a sample under far-field loading conditions by using ultimate properties obtained in uniaxial tension.

Graphical abstract: On the relationship between cutting and tearing in soft elastic solids

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
08 Apr. 2021
Accepted
14 Jūn. 2021
First published
15 Jūn. 2021

Soft Matter, 2021,17, 6728-6741

Author version available

On the relationship between cutting and tearing in soft elastic solids

B. Zhang and S. B. Hutchens, Soft Matter, 2021, 17, 6728 DOI: 10.1039/D1SM00527H

To request permission to reproduce material from this article, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements