Roughness of Crack Interfaces in Two-Dimensional Beam Lattices

Abstract

The roughness of crack interfaces is reported in quasistatic fracture, using an elastic network of beams with random breaking thresholds. For strong disorders we obtain $\zeta =0.86\mathrm{}\left(3\right)$ for the roughness exponent, a result which is very different from the minimum energy surface exponent, i.e., $\zeta =\frac{2}{3}$. A crossover to lower values is observed as the disorder is reduced, the exponent in this regime being strongly dependent on the disorder.