Abstract
In this chapter, a probe on an important aspect, rupture theory of soft matter, is discussed, in which the soft matter and soft-matter quasicrystals are introduced at first. Then, we discuss the behaviour of the matter. For the soft-matter quasicrystals, there are basic equations describing their dynamics; due to the work of the second author of this chapter, this provides a fundamental for studying the rupture feature quantitatively. For general soft matter, there are no such equations so far, whose rupture theory quantitatively is not available at moment. The discussion on the soft-matter quasicrystals may provide a reference for other branches of soft matter.
Keywords
- soft matter
- quasicrystals
- generalized dynamics
- equation of state
- crack
- stress intensity factor
- generalized Griffith criterion of rupture
1. Introduction
Soft-matter quasicrystals belong to a category of soft matter. It is well known that the soft matter is an intermediate phase between solid and liquid, which presents the behaviour of both solid and liquid, the first nature of which is fluidity, and behaves as a complex structure. Hence, the soft matter is named as a complex liquid or a structured liquid. Soft-matter quasicrystals are soft-matter with quasi-periodic symmetry. In this sense, they are a category of soft matter with highest symmetry so far. The high symmetry of the matter presents symmetry breaking and leads to importance of elementary excitations. This helps us to set up their dynamic equations and provide the fundamental for the rupture study.
2. Soft matter and the rupture problem
The liquid crystals, polymers, colloids, surfactants, and so on are in common named as soft matter. The 12-fold symmetry quasicrystals were observed most frequently in the soft matter [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7]. At the same time, cracks in soft matter [8, 9] cannot be ignored and should be prevented [10] from the material safety. Other crack and rupture problems in soft matter can be referred from [11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18]. This shows that the study on crack and rupture for soft matter including soft-matter quasicrystals is very important.
It is well known that the failure of brittle structural materials has been well studied. According to the work of Griffith [19], the existence and propagation of crack is the reason of the failure of these materials. Griffith used the exact solution of a crack in an infinite plate and calculated the crack strain energy. The energy is the function of crack size. He further calculated crack energy release rate and suggested that when the release rate equals to the surface tensile of the material, the solid will be a failure. His hypothesis was proved by experiments. This is the famous Griffith criterion. Afterward, the classical Griffith theory was developed by Irwin et al. for studying quasi-brittle failure, where the strain energy release rate was replaced by so-called stress intensity factor and the surface tensile was replaced by the fracture toughness of the material. This is the engineering approach of the Griffith theory, and played an important role in engineering application. The failure of ductile materials is also related with the existence and propagation of crack, but the problem has not been well studied due to the plastic deformation around the crack tip. The plastic deformation is a nonlinear irreducible process. The problem is extremely complex physically and mathematically. The failure of soft matter will be more complex than the ductile structural materials because of the existence of the fluidity. Especially, the experimental results are few of reported. As a most preliminary probe for studying the problem of soft matter, we try to draw from the idea of the classical Griffith work, i.e., to study the crack stability/instability, we can use the so-called following Griffith-Irwin criterion
in which
Of course, the criterion (1) is only a reference for the soft matter, and a further analysis will be given in the subsequent sections.
3. Soft-matter quasicrystals and their generalized dynamics
There are a quite lot of references concerning the crack and rupture problems in soft matter; however, the quantitative analyses are not so much, because most branches of soft matter science are in qualitative stage so far. Either theoretical research or engineering application, the rupture problem of the soft matter needs a quantitative analysis.
Recently, generalized dynamics of soft-matter quasicrystals has been developed [20, 21, 22, 23, 24], which may become another quantitative branch in soft matter apart from the liquid crystals science. The generalized dynamics of soft-matter quasicrystals provides a tool for analyzing quantitatively rupture problem of the matter, whose result may be references of other categories of soft matter.
Soft-matter quasicrystals look like other categories of soft matter which belong to complex fluid; at mean time they present highly symmetry. For the high ordered phase, the symmetry breaking and elementary excitation principle are important. By using the Landau-Anderson [25, 26] symmetry breaking and elementary excitation principle, there are phonon and phason elementary excitations. As a class of soft matter, the fluidity is the substantive nature of the soft-matter quasicrystals; so Fan [20, 21, 22, 23, 24] introduced another elementary excitation—fluid phonon apart from phonons and phasons; of course, the concept of the fluid phonon is originated from the Landau School [27]. The introducing of fluid phonon requires a supplemented equation and the equation of state as well, which is also completed by Fan and co-worker [28]. With these bases, the generalized dynamics of soft-matter quasicrystals is set up.
For the need of the present chapter, we list the two-dimensional equations of the dynamics of soft-matter quasicrystals of 5- and 10-fold symmetry as follows:
in which
4. An example of stress analysis of soft-matter quasicrystals
With Eq. (2), we can carry out a stress analysis of some fundamental specimens with crack of soft-matter quasicrystals; we here give only a computational example as shown in Figure 1.
If we want to obtain further information on deformation and motion of the material, we must solve the equations under appropriate initial and boundary conditions. To solve the problem, a specimen made by the matter should be optioned, which is subjected to some initial and boundary conditions. Here, the corresponding conditions of the specimen shown in Figure 1 are as follows:
In the present computation we take,
The initial and boundary value problem (3) of Eq. (2) can be solved by the finite difference method to solve the boundary value problem (Figure 2), e.g.,
so determine the phonon and phason displacement fields and fluid phonon velocity filed, then the phonon and phason strain tensors.
and the fluid phonon deformation rate tensor
and according to constitutive laws
we obtain the phonon stresses
Due to the complexity of the equations, the computation is complex too. For the dynamic problems, i.e., there are manmade damping terms
The computational results are mostly dependent on the ratio value of
5. Significance of fluid stress to crack initiation of growth and crack propagation
In the crack and fracture of brittle or quasibrittle failure of structural materials, the stress analysis is a basic task, from which one can determine the stress intensity factor, and then use the Griffith-Irwin criterion to analyze the crack stability/instability. For the Mode I crack, the tensile stress
After our computation, in soft matter including soft-matter quasicrystals, apart from the phonon stress
In principle, the Griffith theory holds for describing brittle and quasi-brittle rupture of structural materials (or engineering materials). However, for soft matter including soft-matter quasicrystals, there is fundamental difference with the structural materials. The key reason about this is the existence of fluid effect; in terminology of soft-matter quasicrystal study, it is also called the existence of fluid phonon. According to our analysis, the effect of fluid stress intensity factor is opposite to the elastic stress intensity factor (or by using the terminology of soft-matter quasicrystals study, the elastic stress intensity factor is also called the phonon stress intensity factor).
The computational results are dependent upon the ratio
Therefore, the value of
The normalized elastic dynamic stress intensity factor is defined as
6. Possible criterion of rupture
For soft matter, there is fracture criterion:
The Griffith theory can be extended to soft matter. If
7. The references for other soft matter
The example given in previous section is only the most preliminary discussion on the probe of rupture of soft-matter quasicrystals. It does not mean any in-depth and exact theory of the problem. The significance of the discussion lies in providing a possible drawing for other categories of soft matter in the quantitative study of rupture problems. The formulation of the present study may be referenced by other branches of soft matter, in which the constitutive laws for themselves are needed, and phason field can be excluded for non-quasicrystalline materials, and so on. With these considerations, the rupture theory for the other categories of soft matter out of the soft-matter quasicrystals may be set up.
8. Conclusion and discussion
From Figure 5, we also can see that the real value of fluid DSIF is negative; thus, we can say it causes the crack closed. When comparing (a) with (b), the absolute value of fluid DSIF is larger than the elastic ones; thus, the crack cannot propagate. Then, we can conclude that in the quasicrystal of soft matter, the fluid effect is important, and we should do the study under the hydrodynamics theory.
The equation set of generalized dynamics of soft-matter quasicrystals is complete; it is possible to provide the hydrodynamics study on the mass distribution, deformation, and motion, including rupture analysis of the new phase. In particular, the dynamics stress intensity factor (DSIF) was evaluated, and the computation presents highly stability. In the results, there are two regimes: one is elastic DSIF and the other is fluid DSIF. The former leads to crack surface opening and the latter leads to crack surface closing. We can conclude that whether or not the crack open or close depends on the competition between the elastic DSIF and fluid DSIF. Of course, the theoretical analysis is anxious for the experimental verification currently, which is our attempt work in future.
The above introducing is rough and preliminary, in fact, around the crack tip, due to the stress concentration and high stress grad, nonelastic stress appears, the Griffith theory will not be effective, i.e., the theory based on the stress intensity factor will not be valid, one must carry out nonlinear analysis, e.g. the theory based on the crack tip opening displacement, in which the size of the plastic zone near the crack tip is also considered, refer to Fan [24], which may help us to overcome the difficulty mentioned above. However this is a very difficult question which has not been solved so far.
Acknowledgments
This work is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China through grant 11272053.
A.1 The final governing equations of generalized dynamics of soft-matter quasicrystals with 10-fold symmetry in three dimension
In the text, Eq. (2) is the planar field form only. In book [24], it provides an explicit form of the equations and lists below soft-matter quasicrystals with 10-fold symmetry:
in which
Equation (A1) is the final governing equations of dynamics of soft-matter quasicrystals of 10-fold symmetry in three-dimensional case with field variables
The equation set (A1) is the three-dimensional form of the equations, and in our solution, we computed only the two-dimensional form, i.e., the plane field form; in this special case, the 5- and 10-fold symmetry quasicrystals have the same governing equations, but in the three-dimensional case, the equation set (A1) is valid only for the 10-fold symmetry quasicrystals.
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