The mechanical behaviour of continuous media with stochastic damage

Abstract

A model to describe the damage state of materials is developed within the framework of Continuum Damage Mechanics. The damage variable is considered as a random variable. To predict the damage state in a body, knowledge of its intrinsic damage distribution is required. After dividing the body into a number of elementary cells, the intrinsic damage distribution can be determined utilizing statistics of extremes. Fitting this distribution to experimental data the best-fit model parameters in the intrinsic damage distribution are obtained. The model is applied to fatigue damage evolution in brittle elastic materials.