Accepted Friday May 01, 2009
The fiber bundle model describes a collection of elastic fibers under load. The fibers fail sucessively and for each failure, the load distribution among the surviving fibers changes. Even though very simple, this model captures the essentials of failure processes in a large number of materials and settings. We present here a review of the fiber bundle model with different load redistribution mechanisms from the point of view of statistics and statistical physics rather than materials science, with a focus on concepts such as criticality, universality and fluctuations. We discuss the fiber bundle model as a tool for understanding phenomena such as creep, and fatigue, how it is used to describe the behavior of fiber reinforced composites as well as modelling e.g. network failure, traffic jams and earthquake dynamics.