Alessandro Luigi Sellerio - IENI-CNR Milano #
Fracture size effects in defected graphene #
We investigate fracture in a monolayer graphene with a small 
concentration of vacancies by molecular dynamics simulations. We 
simulate monolayers of varying size encompassing more than three 
decades, and we systematically study the mechanical failure following 
simulated "constant engineering strain" conditions. We compute the 
fracture strength distribution as a function of system size and defect 
concentration and compare the results with extreme value statistics. We 
highlight similarities and differences between the size effects expected 
in the fracture of macroscopic disordered solids with those observed at 
the nanoscale.