Stochastic homogenisation for functionals defined on asymptotically piecewise rigid functions

Abstract We study stochastic homogenisation of free-discontinuity surface functionals defined on piecewise rigid functions which arise in the study of fracture in brittle materials. In particular, under standard assumptions on the density, we show that there exists a $$\Gamma $$ <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:mi>Γ</mml:mi> </mml:math> -limit almost surely and that it can be represented by a surface integral. In addition, the effective density can be characterised via a suitable asymptotic cell formula and is deterministic under an ergodicity assumption. We also show via $$\Gamma $$ <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"> <mml:mi>Γ</mml:mi> </mml:math> -convergence that the homogenised functional defined on piecewise rigid functions can be recovered from a Griffith-type model by passing to the limit of vanishing elastic deformations.