Soft materials including elastomers and gels are pervasive in biological systems and technological applications.Whereas it is known that intrinsic fracture energies of softmaterials are relatively low, how the intrinsic fracture energy cooperates with mechanical dissipation in process zone to give high fracture toughness of softmaterials is notwell understood. In addition, it is still challengi...

Micro-cracking in polycrystalline Silicon is a serious concern for the durability of photovoltaic (PV) modules due to the resulting electrical power-loss. In this contribution, a thermo-mechanical cohesive zone model is proposed to predict the evolution of micro-cracks under the action of mechanical and thermal loads. The classical nonlinear cohesive zone approach, used in fracture mechanics to...

Objective: To evaluate fracture strength of veneered translucent zirconium dioxide crowns designed with different porcelain layer thicknesses. Materials and Methods: Sixty crowns, divided into six groups of 10, were used in this study. Groups were divided according to different thicknesses of porcelain veneer on translucent zirconium dioxide cores of equal thickness (0.5 mm). Porcelain thicknes...

Purpose The aim of this study was to describe different designs of semimonolithic crowns made of translucent and high-translucent zirconia materials and to evaluate the effect on fracture resistance and fracture mode. Methods One hundred crowns with different designs were produced and divided into five groups (n=20): monolithic (M), partially veneered monolithic (semimonolithic) with 0.3 mm b...

The critical energy release rate defined as Gc = 2γ + γp (where, γ is the cohesive energy and γp is the plastic work) is widely used as a macroscopic fracture criterion. During embrittlement of Aluminum by Gallium, impurity segregation is localized to a small region along the grain boundary and the bulk plastic properties is unaffected. Yet, the critical energy release rate (which is predominan...