Solid materials have been used extensively for various kinds of structural components in our surroundings. Stability of such solid structures, including not only machinery, architectural and civil structures but also our solid earth, is largely governed by fracture development in the solids. Especially, dynamic fracture, once occurring—quite often unexpectedly—evolves very rapidly and can lead to catastrophic structural failures and disasters like earthquakes. However, contrary to slowly enlarging fractures that can be recognized spatio-temporally in detail, it is extremely difficult to trace dynamically growing fractures even in controlled laboratory experimental conditions, and its physics still remains unexplored. This theme issue introduces and summarizes recent advancements in our understanding of the widespread topics of dynamic fracture of solids from well-assorted perspectives, involving laboratory experiments, simulations and analytical methods as well as field observations, with the common background of mechanics of fracture. Multi-scale subjects range from fracture of metals at atom or particle levels to disastrous rock bursts in deep gold mines and detection of unique signals before devastating fracture such as large, global-scale earthquakes.

This article is part of the theme issue ‘Fracture dynamics of solid materials: from particles to the globe'.

固体材料已广泛用于我们周围环境中的各种结构部件。这种固体结构的稳定性，不仅包括机械，建筑和民用结构，还包括我们的固体土，在很大程度上取决于固体中的裂缝发展。特别是，动态断裂一旦发生（通常是出乎意料的），发展非常迅速，并可能导致灾难性的结构破坏和地震等灾难。但是，与缓慢扩大的裂缝（可以在时空上详细识别）相反，即使在受控的实验室实验条件下，也很难追踪动态增长的裂缝，并且其物理性质仍待探索。本主题课题从各种各样的角度介绍和总结了我们对固体动态断裂广泛理解的最新进展，包括实验室实验，模拟和分析方法以及现场观察，以及断裂力学的共同背景。从原子或粒子水平的金属断裂到深金矿中的灾难性岩石爆裂，以及在破坏性断裂（例如大规模全球地震）发生之前检测独特信号的范围广泛。

本文是主题主题“固体材料的断裂动力学：从粒子到地球”的一部分。