Effect of far-field compliance on local failure dynamics of soft solids. (October 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Rattan, Shruti; Crosby, Alfred J.
• Is Part Of: Extreme mechanics letters. Volume 24(2018)
• Page Start: 14
• Page End: 20
• Publication Date: 2018-10
• Subjects: Soft polymer gels -- Puncture -- Crack initiation -- Compliance -- Rate-dependence; Mechanics -- Periodicals; Mechanics, Applied -- Periodicals; Mechanics; Electronic journals; Periodicals; 531.05
• DOI: 10.1016/j.eml.2018.08.003
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2352-4316

Abstract

Abstract: The resistive forces and failure of a soft gel upon large strain indentation with small, spherically-tipped indenters (or puncture mechanics) has been studied previously by Fakhouri et al., (2015). The above work is extended to include the effect of far-field compliance on the critical crack initiation event via puncture in soft acrylic triblock copolymer gels. It is found that critical puncture force, P c, reduces with increasing far-field compliance, C s, due to the change in local probe velocity, v g . A power-law relation between P c and C s is established and is shown to be valid across a range of global probe velocity, v c, varied over three orders of magnitude. Small-strain mechanical response of the gels characterized via oscillatory shear rheology and large strain response measured from puncture mechanics show rate-independent behavior. Our experiments and analysis provide insight into local rate-dependent failure processes in elastic triblock copolymer gels.