Evolution of bond fractures in a randomly distributed fiber network

Fracture in a planar randomly ordered fiber network subjected to approximately homogenous macroscopic stress and strain field is considered. A theory describing material degradation on a macroscopic scale is derived via Griffith’s energy balance for an internal fractured area in the network assuming the active fracture process on the microscopic level is fiber–fiber bond breakage. Attention is confined to a purely mechanical theory assuming isothermal processes and the theory relies on equations commonly used in theories of statistical physics. In the theory, a bond breaking driving force is stated to be equal to the elastic strain energy density of a non-fractured network. A debond fraction can be coupled to a linearly decrease of the network’s macroscopic stiffness. The rate of the fracture processes is determined by the network’s inherent properties (bond and fiber density, bond strength, etc.). During the loading process, until onset of localization, the bond breaks occur at randomly distributed locations spread over the fiber network and the theory estimate material degradation on a macroscopic level. When localization takes place, the fracture process changes from a two-dimensional randomly distributed process to a one-dimensional process and other theories have to be included to describe post-localization behavior. An approximately in-plane isotropic low-density paper is used in tensile experiments while monitoring acoustic emission activity to evaluate the theory. The experimentally obtained results support the theory surprisingly well.