title: Dynamics of fracture in drying suspensions.
abstract: We investigate the dynamics of fracture in drying films of colloidal silica. Water loss quenches the nanoparticle dispersions to form a liquid-saturated elastic network of particles that relieves drying-induced strain by cracking. These cracks display intriguing intermittent motion originating from the deformation of arrested crack tips and aging of the elastic network. The dynamics of a single crack exhibits a universal evolution, described by a balance of the driving elastic power with the sum of interfacial power and the viscous dissipation rate of flowing interstitial fluid.
authors.affiliation: DEAS, Department of Physics, and Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA. eric.dufresne@yale.edu
authors.forename: E R
authors.initials: ER
authors.lastname: Dufresne
authors.forename: D J
authors.initials: DJ
authors.lastname: Stark
authors.forename: N A
authors.initials: NA
authors.lastname: Greenblatt
authors.forename: J X
authors.initials: JX
authors.lastname: Cheng
authors.forename: J W
authors.initials: JW
authors.lastname: Hutchinson
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Mahadevan
authors.forename: D A
authors.initials: DA
authors.lastname: Weitz