Spreading the Damage: How Heterogeneity Delocalizes Fracture in Polymer Networks
Abstract
Fracture in polymer networks is strongly influenced by how network architecture and topology organize damage in space. Although these materials can sustain large deformations under homogeneous loading, they often fail in a brittle and flaw-sensitive manner once defects are present. Here we show that network heterogeneity is one key architectural parameter controlling this transition. Using a discrete mesoscale network model that explicitly resolves strand-level prestretch, force transmission, and irreversible bond scission, we demonstrate that heterogeneity in prestretch and strand lengths broadens crack-induced deformation, delocalizes bond rupture, and enlarges the fracture process zone. In polydisperse networks, increasing contour-length disorder broadens the prestretch distribution and systematically increases both toughness and the intrinsic length scale governing flaw sensitivity. Bimodal networks amplify this mechanism further through combined contrasts in prestretch and strand lengths, producing the largest damage zones and the highest toughness among the architectures studied. Inspired by the results, we derive a scaling estimate relating the emergent fracture-active length to the spatial range of crack-induced deformation and the logarithmic spread of strands' remaining stretch to rupture.
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BibTeX
@misc{assadi2026spreading,
title = {{Spreading the Damage: How Heterogeneity Delocalizes Fracture in Polymer Networks}},
author = {Saleh Assadi and Zachary White and Radhika Joshi and Franck J. Vernerey},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2610.15962},
eprint = {2610.15962},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.15962},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Spreading the Damage: How Heterogeneity Delocalizes Fracture in Polymer Networks
AU - Saleh Assadi
AU - Zachary White
AU - Radhika Joshi
AU - Franck J. Vernerey
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/11
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2610.15962
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.15962
AB - Fracture in polymer networks is strongly influenced by how network architecture and topology organize damage in space. Although these materials can sustain large deformations under homogeneous loading, they often fail in a brittle and flaw-sensitive manner once defects are present. Here we show that network heterogeneity is one key architectural parameter controlling this transition. Using a discrete mesoscale network model that explicitly resolves strand-level prestretch, force transmission, and irreversible bond scission, we demonstrate that heterogeneity in prestretch and strand lengths broadens crack-induced deformation, delocalizes bond rupture, and enlarges the fracture process zone. In polydisperse networks, increasing contour-length disorder broadens the prestretch distribution and systematically increases both toughness and the intrinsic length scale governing flaw sensitivity. Bimodal networks amplify this mechanism further through combined contrasts in prestretch and strand lengths, producing the largest damage zones and the highest toughness among the architectures studied. Inspired by the results, we derive a scaling estimate relating the emergent fracture-active length to the spatial range of crack-induced deformation and the logarithmic spread of strands' remaining stretch to rupture.
ER -