A bundle of fibers has been considered here as a model for composite materials, where breaking of the fibers occur due to a combined influence of applied load (stress) and external noise. Through numerical simulation and a mean-field calculation we show that there exists a robust phase boundary between continuous (no waiting time) and intermittent fracturing regimes. In the intermittent regime, throughout the entire rupture process avalanches of different sizes are produced and there is a waiting time between two consecutive avalanches. The statistics of waiting times follows a $\Gamma$ distribution and the avalanche distribution shows power-law scaling, similar to what has been observed in the case of earthquake events and bursts in fracture experiments. We propose a prediction scheme that can tell when the system is expected to reach the continuous fracturing point from the intermittent phase.

• Received 29 June 2012

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.88.012123