Dimensional crossover in fragmentation

Experiments in which thick clay plates and glass rods are fractured have revealed different behavior of fragment mass distribution function in the small and large fragment regions. In this paper we explain this behavior using non-extensive Tsallis statistics and show how the crossover between the two regions is caused by the change in the fragments’ dimensionality during the fracture process. We obtain a physical criterion for the position of this crossover and an expression for the change in the power-law exponent between the small and large fragment regions. These predictions are in good agreement with the experiments on thick clay plates.