title: Heterogeneous interfacial failure between two elastic blocks.
abstract: We investigate numerically the failure process when two elastic media, one hard and one soft that have been glued together thus forming a common interface, are pulled apart. We present three main results: (1) The area distribution of simultaneously failing glue (bursts) follows a power law consistent with the theoretically expected exponent 2.5, (2) the maximum load and displacement before catastrophic failure scale as L(2) and L(0), respectively, where L is the linear size of the system, and (3) the area distribution of failed glue regions (clusters) is a power law with exponent -1.6 when the system fails catastrophically.
authors.affiliation: Institut Non-Linéaire de Nice, UMR CNRS 6618, Université de Nice-Sophia Antipolis, 1361 Route des Lucioles, F-06560 Valbonne, France.
authors.forename: G George
authors.initials: GG
authors.lastname: Batrouni
authors.forename: Alex
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Hansen
authors.forename: Jean
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Schmittbuhl