Experimental and Numerical Investigations on Failure Mechanisms in Fiber-Reinforced Ceramics

摘要

The primary focus on this research was to model the evolution of microcracks at the interfaces of grains and inclusions in quasibrittle materials. Several unique aspects have been developed as part of the research. These include the application of the material point method to a new class of problems and the formulation of a thermodynamically-based decohesion constitutive equation. In addition, numerical algorithms were formulated to handle three-dimensional problems, to include the effects of randomness of grain sizes and of the strength of cement paste, and to take into account boundary constraints. Each of these aspects represent new or extensive improvements to the approaches available at the time the research was initiated.