PubMed Health⌕ Search

Biomedical subjects

E A Jagla

Publications and source records attributed to E A Jagla.

13 recordsLinked to original sources

Morphologies of expansion ridges of elastic thin films onto a substrate.

A model of a thin film elastically attached to a rigid substrate is considered. In the case in which the film expands relative to the substrate and assuming certain nonlinear elastic behavior of the film, expansion ridges may appear, in which the material collapses, and the density is higher on average. By studying numerically this process, the possible morphologies of these collapsed regions are presented. They range from circular spots and straight stripes, to wiggle polygonal patterns and ring-shaped domains. The similarity of some of these results with patterns observed in delamination of thin films and biphase epitaxial growth is emphasized.

Journal Article↗

Some analytical results for the velocity of cracks propagating in nonlinear lattices.

We analyze a piecewise linear elastic model for the propagation of a crack in a stripe geometry under mode III conditions, in the absence of dissipation. The model is continuous in the propagation direction and discrete in the perpendicular direction. The velocity of the crack is a function of the value of the applied strain. We find analytically the value of the propagation velocity close to the Griffith threshold, and close to the strain of uniform breakdown. Contrary to the case of perfectly harmonic behavior up to the fracture point, in the piecewise linear elastic model the crack velocity is lower than the sound velocity, reaching this limiting value at the strain of uniform breakdown. We complement the analytical results with numerical simulations and find excellent agreement.

Journal Article↗

Supersonic crack propagation in a class of lattice models of mode III brittle fracture.

We study a lattice model for mode III crack propagation in brittle materials in a stripe geometry at constant applied stretching. Stiffening of the material at large deformation produces supersonic crack propagation. For large stretching the propagation is guided by well-developed soliton waves. For low stretching, the crack-tip velocity has a universal dependence on stretching that can be obtained using a simple geometrical argument.

Journal Article↗

Diffuse interface approach to brittle fracture.

We present a continuum model for the propagation of cracks and fractures in brittle materials. The components of the strain tensor epsilon are the fundamental variables. The evolution equations are based on a free energy that reduces to that of linear elasticity for small epsilon, and accounts for cracks through energy saturation at large values of epsilon. We regularize the model by including terms dependent on gradients of epsilon in the free energy. No additional fields are introduced, and then the whole dynamics is perfectly defined. We show that the model is able to reproduce basic facts in fracture physics, like the Griffith's dependence of the critical stress as a minus one-half power of the crack length. In addition, regularization makes the results insensitive to the numerical mesh used, something not at all trivial in crack modeling. We present an example of the application of the model to predict the growth and curving of cracks in a nontrivial geometrical configuration.

Journal Article↗

Disorder-induced microscopic magnetic memory.

Using coherent x-ray speckle metrology, we have measured the influence of disorder on major loop return point memory (RPM) and complementary point memory (CPM) for a series of perpendicular anisotropy Co/Pt multilayer films. In the low disorder limit, the domain structures show no memory with field cycling--no RPM and no CPM. With increasing disorder, we observe the onset and the saturation of both the RPM and the CPM. These results provide the first direct ensemble-sensitive experimental study of the effects of varying disorder on microscopic magnetic memory and are compared against the predictions of existing theories.

Journal Article↗

Numerical simulations of two-dimensional magnetic domain patterns.

I show that a model for the interaction of magnetic domains that includes a short range ferromagnetic and a long range dipolar antiferromagnetic interaction reproduces very well many characteristic features of two-dimensional magnetic domain patterns. In particular bubble and stripe phases are obtained, along with polygonal and labyrinthine morphologies. In addition, two puzzling phenomena, namely, the so called "memory effect" and the "topological melting" observed experimentally, are also qualitatively described. Very similar phenomenology is found in the case in which the model is changed to be represented by the Swift-Hohenberg equation driven by an external orienting field.

Journal Article↗

Maturation of crack patterns.

Superficial (two-dimensional) crack patterns appear when a thin layer of material elastically attached to a substrate contracts. We study numerically the maturation process undergone by these crack patterns when they are allowed to adapt in order to reduce its energy. The process models the evolution in depth of cracks in geological formations and in starch samples ("columnar jointing"), and also the time evolution (over thousands of years) of crack patterns in frozen soils. We observe an evolution towards a polygonal pattern that consists of a fixed distribution of polygons with mainly five, six, and seven sides. They compare very well with known experimental examples. The evolution of one of these "mature" patterns upon reduction of the degree of contraction is also considered. We find that the pattern adapts by closing some of the cracks and rearranging those in the immediate neighborhood. This produces a change of the mean size of the polygons, but remarkably no changes of the statistical properties of the pattern. Comparison with the same behavior recently observed in starch samples is presented.

Journal Article↗

Boundary lubrication properties of materials with expansive freezing.

We have performed molecular dynamics simulations of solid-solid contacts lubricated by a model fluid displaying many of the properties of water, particularly its expansive freezing. Near the region where expansive freezing occurs, the lubricating film remains fluid, and the friction force decreases linearly as the shear velocity is reduced. No sign of stick-slip motion is observed, even at the lowest velocities. We give a simple interpretation of these results, and suggest that, in general, good boundary lubrication properties will be found in the family of materials with expansive freezing.

Journal Article↗

Stable propagation of an ordered array of cracks during directional drying.

We study the appearance and evolution of an array of parallel cracks in a thin slab of material that is directionally dried, and show that the cracks penetrate the material uniformly if the drying front is sufficiently sharp. We also show that cracks have a tendency to become evenly spaced during the penetration. The typical distance between cracks is mainly governed by the typical distance of the pattern at the surface, and it is not modified during the penetration. Our results agree with recent experimental work, and can be extended to three dimensions to describe the properties of columnar polygonal patterns observed in some geological formations.

Journal Article↗

Sequential fragmentation: the origin of columnar quasihexagonal patterns.

We present a model that explains the origin and predicts the statistical properties of columnar quasihexagonal crack patterns, as observed in the columnar jointing of basaltic lava flows. Induced by temperature gradients during cooling, irregular fractures appear at the surface of the material. At later times fractures penetrate into the material, and tend to form polygonal patterns. We show that this ordering can be described as a tendency to minimize an energy functional. Atomistic simulations confirm this interpretation. Numerical simulations based on a phenomenological implementation of this principle generate patterns that have remarkably good statistical agreement with real ones.

Journal Article↗

Low-temperature behavior of core-softened models: water and silica behavior.

A core-softened model of a glass forming fluid is numerically studied in the limit of very low temperatures. The model shows two qualitatively different behaviors depending on the strength of the attraction between particles. For no or low attraction, the changes of density as a function of pressure are smooth, although hysteretic due to mechanical metastabilities. For larger attraction, sudden changes of density upon compressing and decompressing occur. This global mechanical instability is correlated to the existence of a thermodynamic first-order amorphous-amorphous transition. The two different behaviors obtained correspond qualitatively to the different phenomenology observed in silica and water.

Journal Article↗

Liquid-liquid equilibrium for monodisperse spherical particles.

A system of identical particles interacting through an isotropic potential that allows for two preferred interparticle distances is numerically studied. When the parameters of the interaction potential are adequately chosen, the system exhibits coexistence between two different liquid phases (in addition to the usual liquid-gas coexistence). It is shown that this coexistence can occur at equilibrium, namely, in the region in which the liquid is thermodynamically stable.

Journal Article↗