Introduction To Continuum Damage Mechanics

Introduction to continuum damage mechanics

Modern engineering materials subjected to unfavorable mechanical and environmental conditions decrease in strength due to the accumulation of microstructural changes. For example, considering damage in metals we can mention creep damage, ductile plastic damage, embrittlement of steels and fatigue damage. To properly estimate the value of damage when designing reliable structures it is necessary to formulate the damage phenomenon in terms of mechanics. Then it is possible to analyse various engineering problems using analytical and computational techniques. During the last two decades the basic principles of continuum damage mechanics were formulated and some special problems were solved. Many scientific papers were published and several conferences on damage mechanics took place. Now continuum damage mechanics is rapidly developing branch of fracture mechanics. This book is probably the first one on the subject; it contains a sys tematic description of the basic aspects of damage mechanics and some of its applications. In general, a theoretical description of damage can be rather compli cated. The experiments in this field are difficult (especially under multiax ial stress and non-proportional loading). Therefore, experimental data, as a rule, are scarce. Determination of functions and constants, which play a role in the complex variants of the theory, from available experimental data is often practically impossible. ix L.M. Kachanov The problems of damage mechanics are mainly engineering ones. Therefore, the author tries to avoid superfluous mathematical formalism. Some more details of the book's subject can be found in the list of con tents.

Introduction to continuum damage mechanics

Continuum Damage Mechanics and Numerical Applications

"Continuum Damage Mechanics and Numerical Applications" presents a systematic development of the theory of Continuum Damage Mechanics and its numerical engineering applications using a unified form of the mathematical formulations in anisotropic and isotropic damage models. The theoretical framework is based on the thermodynamic theory of energy and material dissipation and is described by a set of fundamental formulations of constitutive equations of damaged materials, development equations of the damaged state, and evolution equations of micro-structures. According to concepts of damage-dissipation of the material state and effective evolution of material properties, all these advanced equations, which take nonsymmetrized effects of damage aspects into account, are developed and modified from the traditional general failure models so they are more easily applied and verified in a wide range of engineering practices by experimental testing. Dr. Wohua Zhang is a Professor at Engineering Mechanics Research Center in Zhejiang University of China. Dr. Yuanqiang Cai is a Professor at Department of Civil Engineering in Zhejiang University of China.