TY - JOUR AU - Bouchbinder, E. AU - Brener, E.A. TI - Viscoelastic fracture of biological composites JO - Journal of the mechanics and physics of solids VL - 59 SN - 0022-5096 CY - Amsterdam [u.a.] PB - Elsevier Science M1 - PreJuSER-19501 SP - 2279 - 2293 PY - 2011 N1 - EB acknowledges a useful discussion with Peter Fratzl and the support of the Harold Perlman Family Foundation and the Robert Rees Applied Research Fund. EAB acknowledges support of the Erna and Jacob Michael visiting professorship funds at Weizmann Institute of Science. AB - Soft constituent materials endow biological composites, such as bone, dentin and nacre, with viscoelastic properties that may play an important role in their remarkable fracture resistance. In this paper we calculate the scaling properties of the quasi-static energy release rate and the viscoelastic contribution to the fracture energy of various biological composites, using both perturbative and non-perturbative approaches. We consider coarse-grained descriptions of three types of anisotropic structures: (i) liquid-crystal-like composites, (ii) stratified composites, (iii) staggered composites, for different crack orientations. In addition, we briefly discuss the implications of anisotropy for fracture criteria. Our analysis highlights the dominant lengthscales and scaling properties of viscoelastic fracture of biological composites. It may be useful for evaluating crack velocity toughening effects and structure-dissipation relations in these materials. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. KW - J (WoSType) LB - PUB:(DE-HGF)16 UR - <Go to ISI:>//WOS:000296170800002 DO - DOI:10.1016/j.jmps.2011.08.007 UR - https://juser.fz-juelich.de/record/19501 ER -