Growth of pore interfaces and roughness of fracture surfaces in porous silica: Million particle molecular-dynamics simulations

Pore interface growth and the roughness of fracture surfaces in silica glasses have been investigated with large-scale molecular-dynamics simulations. During uniform dilation, the average pore radius R and the width W scale with the pore size s as R∼sη and η=0.48±0.03 with η=0.48±0.03 and μ=0.50±0.03. When the mass density is reduced to 1.4 g/cm3, the pores grow catastrophically to cause fracture. The roughness exponent for fracture surfaces, α=0.87±0.02 supports experimental claims about the universality of α. © 1994 The American Physical Society.