Avalanches in Wood Compression

T. Mäkinen, A. Miksic, M. Ovaska, and Mikko J. Alava
Phys. Rev. Lett. 115, 055501 – Published 31 July 2015

Abstract

Wood is a multiscale material exhibiting a complex viscoplastic response. We study avalanches in small wood samples in compression. “Woodquakes” measured by acoustic emission are surprisingly similar to earthquakes and crackling noise in rocks and laboratory tests on brittle materials. Both the distributions of event energies and of waiting (silent) times follow power laws. The stress-strain response exhibits clear signatures of localization of deformation to “weak spots” or softwood layers, as identified using digital image correlation. Even though material structure-dependent localization takes place, the avalanche behavior remains scale-free.

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  • Received 25 March 2015

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.115.055501

© 2015 American Physical Society

Authors & Affiliations

T. Mäkinen, A. Miksic*, M. Ovaska, and Mikko J. Alava

  • COMP Center of Excellence, Department of Applied Physics, Aalto University, P.O. Box 11100, 00076 Aalto, Espoo, Finland

  • *Corresponding author. amandinemiksic@yahoo.fr

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Vol. 115, Iss. 5 — 31 July 2015

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