Self-stresses and crack formation by particle swelling in cohesive granular media.

We present a molecular-dynamics study of force patterns, tensile strength, and crack formation in a cohesive granular model where the particles are subjected to swelling or shrinkage gradients. Nonuniform particle size change generates self-equilibrated forces that lead to crack initiation as soon as the strongest tensile contacts begin to fail. We find that the tensile strength is well below the theoretical strength as a result of inhomogeneous force transmission in granular media. The cracks propagate either inward from the edge upon shrinkage or outward from the center upon swelling. We show that the coarse-grained stresses are correctly predicted by an elastic model that incorporates particle size change as metric evolution.