Modeling the acoustic emissions generated during dynamic fracture under bending

Abstract

We quantitatively analyze the dynamic fracture of a glass tube under bending and model the associated generation of acoustic emissions. In our experiments, precisely controlled dynamic fracture is induced by focusing flexural waves. High-speed videos show the crack propagating rapidly through 85% of the cross section, before slowing down considerably. The resulting acoustic emissions are modeled by computing the diffraction of the incident flexural waves at the traction-free crack surface. We observe that longitudinal and flexural waves are generated during the fracture process, with very good agreement between experiments and simulations.