Displaying quasi-brittle failure using avalanches: paper as a material model

This article aims to discuss and complete the avalanche representations of the failure process of quasi-brittle materials. Paper was used as a model material. We proposed an original method to determine avalanches extracted directly from the force drops in the post-peak regime of experimental force–displacement curves. We studied the avalanche distributions on notched and unnotched samples, taking into account the measurement noise. From these experimental tests, two regimes in the avalanche distribution were observed during the propagation of a macrocrack, in particular with a well-defined power law at small scale, that was consistent with other avalanche distributions based on other methods and other materials in literature. A single regime power-law distributed was found for a diffuse damage (without a significant macrocrack propagation) using the Mazars’ damage model. Our results showed that the post-peak regime of tensile curves contained the statistical signature of the propagation of a macrocrack during the rupture of paper.