Finger-like crack growth in solids and liquids

Abstract
When voids or cracks grow by diffusion on grain boundaries in stressed solids, it is sometimes observed that the void periphery becomes finger-like, the fingers advancing ahead of the main body of the void. In this, grain-boundary voids in solids resemble voids in liquids, or in very viscous adhesives, all of which show a transition from a stable smooth periphery to an unstable, finger-like one as the void (or crack) growth-rate increases. We have analysed these phenomena, adapting and extending results due to Taylor and Zener. This allows us to derive conditions for the instability to occur, and expressions for the finger spacing and for the overall growth-rate of the finger-like crack

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