Continuum damage modeling of impact fracture in ceramic materials

Abstract

The expanded use of ceramic materials in a variety of engineering applications demands improved capabilities for the simulation of anisotropic microcracking and fracture processes. Damage mechanics provides a continuum-based description of such processes which can be readily implemented in the Lagrangian finite element codes most often employed in structural analysis and design. The use of anisotropic damage models in three-dimensional impact simulations demands that large rotation effects be accounted for, in a computationally efficient way. In addition, ceramic materials call for consideration of rate-dependent damage evolution equations. A second-order tensor-based elastic-brittle damage model for ceramic materials may be formulated, which is both suitable for large rotation analysis and thermodynamically consistent in its treatment of rate-dependent damage evolution.