In this book, the authors bring together basic ideas from fracture
mechanics and statistical physics, classical theories, simulation and
experimental results to make the statistical physics aspects of fracture
more accessible.
They explain fracture-like phenomena, highlighting the role of disorder
and heterogeneity from a statistical physical viewpoint. The role of
defects is discussed in brittle and ductile fracture, ductile to brittle
transition, fracture dynamics, failure processes with tension as well as
compression: experiments, failure of electrical networks, self-organized
critical models of earthquake and their extensions to capture the
physics of earthquake dynamics. The text also includes a discussion of
dynamical transitions in fracture propagation in theory and experiments,
as well as an outline of analytical results in fiber bundle model
dynamics
With its wide scope, in addition to the statistical physics community,
the material here is equally accessible to engineers, earth scientists,
mechanical engineers, and material scientists. It also serves as a
textbook for graduate students and researchers in physics.