黑料吃瓜网

Many problems in geology and geophysics occur over extreme spatial or temporal scales, and are often both three dimensional and time dependent. My research involves developing scaled-down laboratory systems to try to study these problems and developing and utilizing multi-dimensional field and laboratory measurements to better connect these analog systems to nature. I am especially interested in exploring the role of heterogeneity in determining the dynamics, complexity and roughness of both faults and fractures, as well as problems related to damage, wear, and granular dynamics.

Abstract: Fractures are a critical process in how materials wear, weaken, and fail, whose unpredictable behavior can have dire consequences. While the behavior of smooth cracks in ideal materials is well understood, it is assumed that for real, heterogeneous materials, fracture propagation is complex, generating rough fracture surfaces that are highly sensitive to specific details of the medium. However, I will demonstrate how fracture roughness and material heterogeneity are inextricably linked via a simple framework. Studying hydraulic fractures in brittle hydrogels that have been altered to create controlled material heterogeneity, I will show that the crack surface roughness depends solely on one parameter: the probability to perturb the front above a critical size to produce a steplike instability.  From this single parameter, we can reliably predict the roughness of brittle cracks, and use fracture roughness to characterize material heterogeneity.