- Accepted Paper
Atomistic simulation of subcritical crack growth in glass in vacuum
Phys. Rev. Lett. - Accepted 9 October, 2026
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/g9x1-wnnd
Phys. Rev. Lett. - Accepted 9 October, 2026
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/g9x1-wnnd
We report atomistic simulations of subcritical crack growth rates in silica glass that quantitatively align with experimental data. This result was achieved by a careful selection of simulation cell geometry and boundary conditions, a novel crack tip tracking algorithm, a robust interatomic potential that balances accuracy with computational efficiency, and high-performance parallel computing algorithms and resources. The simulations reveal a succession of burst-arrest events that produce subcritical crack growth across a broad range of rates, extending up to kilometers per second.
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