ANALYSIS OF THE FRACTURE OF BRITTLE ELASTIC-MATERIALS USING A CONTINUUM DAMAGE MODEL

The most known continuum damage theories for brittle structures are suitable to model the degradation of the material due to the deformation process and the consequent initiation of a macro-crack Nevertheless; they are not able to describe the propagation of the crack that leads, eventually, to the breakage of the structure into parts that undergo rigid body motion. This paper presents a theory, formulated from formal arguments of Continuum Mechanics, that may describe not only the degradation but also the fracture of elastic structures. The modeling of such a discontinuous phenomenon through a continuous theory is possible by taking a cohesion variable, related with the Links between material points, as an additional degree of kinematical freedom. The possibilities of the proposed theory are discussed through examples.