From nucleation to percolation: the effect of system size and system disorder

A phase diagram for a one dimensional fiber bundle model is constructed with a continuous variation in two parameters guiding dynamics of the model: strength of disorder and system size. We monitor the successive events of fiber rupture in order to understand the spatial correlation associated with it. We observe three distinct regions with increasing disorder strength. (I) Nucleation - a crack propagates from a particular nucleus with very high spatial correlation and causes global failure; (II) Avalanche - the rupture events show precursors activities with a number of bursts. (III) Percolation - the rupture events are spatially uncorrelated like a percolation process. As the size of the bundle is increased, it favors the nucleating failure. In the thermodynamic limit, we only observe a nucleating failure unless the disorder strength is infinitely high.