Phys.org  June 11, 2024 Brittle deformation models commonly rely on Mohr-Coulomb plasticity coupled with prescribed softening of cohesion and/or friction with accumulated plastic strain. This captures fundamental properties of brittle failure, but is overly sensitive to empirical softening parameters that cannot be determined experimentally. Researchers in France designed a brittle constitutive law that captured key processes of brittle deformation, and could be straightforwardly implemented in standard geodynamic models. In the Sub-Critically-Altered Maxwell (SCAM) flow law the damage progressively and permanently weakened the rock’s elastic moduli, until cracks catastrophically interact and coalesce up to macroscopic failure. The model’s micromechanical parameters could […]