We study fracture propagation in stretched natural rubber sheets. Experimental results in specimens stretched less than 3.8 times show a monotonic increase in the crack speed with stretch and can be explained by a numerical model based on neo-Hookean theory and Kelvin dissipation. In specimens stretched more than 3.8 times, strain-induced crystallites act as reinforcing and toughening fillers and significantly increase fracture resistance, like nanostructures in other polymeric or biological materials. Consequently, as we increase the amount of stretch, fractures travel slower and slower, and eventually halt altogether.

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We have conducted experiments and numerical simulations to investigate supersonic cracks. The experiments are performed at 85 • C to suppress strain-induced crystallites that complicate experiments at lower temperature. Calibration experiments were performed to obtain the parameters needed to compare with a theory including viscous dissipation. We find that both experiments and numerical simulations support supersonic cracks, and we discover a transition from subsonic to supersonic as we plot experimental crack speed curves vs. extension ratio for different sized samples. Both experiments and simulations show two different scaling regimes: the speed of subsonic cracks scales with the elastic energy density while the speed of supersonic cracks scales with the extension ratio. Crack openings have qualitatively different shapes in the two scaling regimes.