Molecular dynamics studies of brittle fracture in vitreous silica: Review and recent progress

The dynamics of brittle fracture in vitreous silica has been a subject of many molecular dynamics (MD) simulations and experiments. A striking similarity between both simulations and experiments is the observation of nanoscale voids that eventually coalesce leading to failure. In this work, we review the above MD simulations and carry out further MD investigations using two variations of classical 2-body potentials. We study the effect of charge-transfer, an important aspect neglected by previous simulations. Further, we examine the growth of ‘critical’ voids and characterize regions surrounding the voids.