Fracture of Soft Materials with Irregular Shape Hard Inclusions

The development of flexible electronics has aroused great interest in the fracture of soft materials. In general, fracture of brittle materials is mainly attributed to cracks, while hard inclusions in soft materials should be considered as dangerous factor, accordingly. However, most researches on soft materials are based on the theory of linear elastic fracture. In this paper, soft materials structures with different shapes of hard inclusions are fabricated by 3D printing method and subjected to tensile testing. The applicability of the theoretical model based on linear assumption is investigated via finite element and experimental analyses.