Modeling a piece of silicon as it cracks and breaks is doubly difficult. Not only are huge numbers of atoms involved, but the whole process comes down to the rapid snapping of complicated covalent bonds. Compounding the difficulty, a fully prescriptive quantum mechanical treatment of crack propagation in bulk material, though possible in principle, will remain for some time beyond the number‐crunching power of even the largest supercomputers.
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© 1999 American Institute of Physics.
1999
American Institute of Physics
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