Damage in impact fragmentation

Abstract

Using a simple and generic molecular dynamics model, we study the damage in a disc of interacting particles as the disc fragments upon impact with a wall. The damage, defined as the ratio of the number of bonds broken by the impact to the initial number of bonds, is found to increase logarithmically with the energy deposited in the system. This result implies a linear growth with damage for the total number of fragments and for the power law exponent of the fragment size distribution.