Pinning and Depinning of Crack Fronts in Heterogeneous Materials

The fatigue fracture surfaces of a metallic alloy and the stress corrosion fracture surfaces of a silicate glass are investigated as a function of crack velocity. It is shown that in both cases there are two self-affine fracture regimes. At large enough length scales, the universal roughness index {zeta}{approx_equal}0.78 is recovered. At smaller length scales, the roughness exponent is close to {zeta}{sub c}{approx_equal}0.50. The crossover length {xi}{sub c} separating these two regimes strongly depends on the material, and exhibits a power-law decrease with the measured crack velocity {xi}{sub c}{proportional_to}v{sup -{phi}}, with {phi}{approx_equal}1. The exponents {nu} and {beta} characterizing the dependence of {xi}{sub c} and v upon the pulling force are shown to be close to {nu}{approx_equal}2 and {beta}{approx_equal}2. {copyright} {ital 1997} {ital The American Physical Society}