A numerical study of crack initiation in a bcc iron system based on dynamic bifurcation theory

Crack initiation under dynamic loading conditions is studied under the framework of dynamic bifurcation theory. An atomistic model for BCC iron is considered to explicitly take into account the detailed molecular interactions. To understand the strain-rate dependence of the crack initiation process, we first obtain the bifurcation diagram from a computational procedure using continuation methods. The stability transition associated with a crack initiation, as well as the connection to the bifurcation diagram, is studied by comparing direct numerical results to the dynamic bifurcation theory [R. Haberman, SIAM J. Appl. Math. 37, 69-106 (1979)].