Morphological similarity of road networks and cracks

An investigation was made regarding to what extent road network patterns are reproduced by a crack model from a viewpoint that they seem to resemble crack patterns in morphology. A desiccation model using double-layered cellular meshes was considered with the parameters representing the anisotropy of the material and the coarseness of grains, together with the introduction of singularities in points and in lines. The model can generally reproduce the real crack patterns and the road network patterns of cities with characteristic morphology by appropriately choosing the values of parameters, indicating that the similar mechanism acts on the formation of road networks and cracks of material although the relevant scales of space time differ from each other. Factors which make the road networks more complex and irregular in morphology were also investigated.