Mechanical modelling the slider‐substrate system with account of sliding

Abstract

Sliding onset is critical to interface failure or earthquake prediction, yet the physical mechanism is still unclear. In the present work, a model for the slender slider‐substrate system has been proposed. To account for sliding, nucleation of an interfacial dislocation and its subsequent mobility have been analyzed which may help clarify the sliding onset. The solution of this model can be simplified to that of Cauchy singular integral equations. Before the interfacial dislocation nucleation, numerical results thus obtained for interfacial tractions have been demonstrated to be in good consistency with experiments. By introducing a critical criterion for static dislocation nucleation, it has been found that the calculated critical force agrees well with that for sliding precursors and the mobility of the dislocation capture some essential features for the experimentally observed behaviours for sliding precursors. These results may cast new light to the occurrence and understanding of sliding onset.