Self-healing solitonic slip pulses in frictional systems

A prominent spatiotemporal failure mode of frictional systems is self-healing slip pulses, which are propa-gating solitonic structures that feature a characteristic length. Here, we numerically derive a family of steady state slip pulse solutions along generic and realistic rate-and-state dependent frictional interfaces, separating large deformable bodies in contact. Such nonlinear interfaces feature a nonmonotonic frictional strength as a function of the slip velocity, with a local minimum. The solutions exhibit a diverging length and strongly inertial propagation velocities, when the driving stress approaches the frictional strength characterizing the local minimum from above, and change their character when it is away from it. An approximate scaling theory quantitatively explains these observations. The derived pulse solutions also exhibit significant spatially-extended dissipation in excess of the edge-localized dissipation (the effective fracture energy) and an unconventional edge singularity. The relevance of our findings for available observations is discussed.

Automated summary

A numerical study is conducted on self-healing slip pulses, which are solitonic structures propagating in frictional systems. The solutions show diverging length and strongly inertial propagation velocities when the driving stress approaches the frictional strength at a local minimum. An approximate scaling theory explains these observations quantitatively. The derived pulse solutions exhibit significant spatially-extended dissipation and an unconventional edge singularity.