Nonextensive statistical analysis of the data on the high-speed impact fracture of solids

The high-speed detection of impact-induced cracks in samples of materials that differ strongly in their degree of homogeneity (fused quartz and granite) has been performed by the acoustic emission method. The experimental energy distributions of the acoustic emission signals that correspond to the energy distribution in the events of the nucleation, growth, and coalescence of the microcracks have been interpreted in terms of the Tsallis statistics, which has been developed to generalize classical thermodynamics over the case of nonequilibrium systems. This allowed us to estimate the degree of correlation in the process of crack formation and to compare the energy release densities in various materials and at various stages of the impact fracture.