ArticleSoft matter2026
Microscopic measurement of the local deformation field establishes the mechanistic origin of the fatigue threshold for soft brittle materials.
Article in Soft matter, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
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Abstract
Fatigue fracture, whereby a material fails only under repeated loading cycles, depends strongly on load magnitude. In most materials, the applied load must exceed a threshold value - the fatigue threshold - for the crack to advance each cycle. While recent studies clarify the regimes of soft polymer response to cyclic loading, the interplay between crack tip strain fields, irreversible deformation, and energy dissipation remains unclear. Here, we subject polyacrylamide hydrogels and polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) elastomers to controlled cyclic loading, while directly resolving crack tip strain fields with particle tracking microscopy. An irreversible deformation zone emerges at the crack tip with a load-amplitude dependent structure. Below the fatigue threshold, the zone is compressive, and progressively accumulates without crack advance; this demonstrates that sub-threshold deformation is not fully reversible. Above threshold, a tensile plastic zone grows and co-propagates with the crack tip. Crack tip opening displacement (CTOD) measurements of the energy release rate
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