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Toughness describes the ability of a material to resist fracture or crack propagation. It is demonstrated here that fracture toughness of a material can be asymmetric, i.e., the resistance of a medium to a crack propagating from right to left can be significantly different from that to a crack propagating from left to right. Such asymmetry is unknown in natural materials, but we show that it can be built into artificial materials through the proper control of microstructure. This paves the way for control of crack paths and direction, where fracture -when unavoidable -can be guided through pre-designed paths to minimize loss of critical components.

Crack initiation and propagation in elastic -perfectly plastic bodies is studied in a phase-field or variational gradient damage formulation. A rate-independent formulation that naturally couples elasticity, perfect plasticity and fracture is presented, and used to study crack initiation in notched specimens and crack propagation using a surfing boundary condition. Both plane strain and plane stress are addressed. It is shown that in plane strain, a plastic zone blunts the notch or crack tip which in turn inhibits crack nucleation and propagation. Sufficient load causes the crack to nucleate or unpin, but the crack does so with a finite jump. Therefore the propagation is intermittent or jerky leaving behind a rough surface. In plane stress, failure proceeds with an intense shear zone ahead of the notch or crack tip and the fracture process is not complete.

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