Interaction of Sound with Fast Crack Propagation

Abstract

The influence of ultrasounds on crack dynamics in brittle materials is experimentally studied by using both the natural sound emitted by the propagating crack and an artificially generated ultrasound burst. We show that, although the acoustic energy is only 5% of the energy needed to propagate the crack, the presence of sound waves in the specimen cannot be neglected because sound interacts with the crack tip and strongly modifies the fracture dynamics.