Degradation mechanisms, energy dissipation and instabilities in brittle materials.

摘要

In this dissertation, first, the theoretical and experimental viewpoints of instability and bifurcation in mechanics are reviewed and discussed. The onset of instability of bifurcation depends on the constitutive assumptions, and is marked by the loss of ellipticity, singularity of the stiffness matrix, and negative or complex eigenvalues. Non-traditional regularization is necessary to obtain useful post-instability solutions. Based on dissipated energy and elastic potential, energy based instability criterion is considered and developed. The global instability criterion is concerned with global non-uniform deformation while the surface degradation instability criterion deals with near surface non-uniformities. In addition, the connection between surface degradation and size, shape effects for brittle materials is examined. The energy based stability theory is applied for some typical problems through analytical and numerical implementations. It is shown that the onset of both surface instability and global degradation instability occurs in the strain hardening stage, that is, before and close to the peak strength. The theoretical results are compared with experimental observations. Both strain gage tests and ultrasonic scanning tests are processed to study the degradation mechanisms of a brittle material. The surface effects are highlighted by the experiments. Ultrasonically dissipated energy shows a random distribution and it follows, in general, the initial non-homogeneity pattern. The relationship between the ultrasonically dissipated energy and mechanically dissipated energy is dependent on deformation and can be approximated by a power function of the factor of load level. The theory for surface degradation consideration involves a few material constants, and these constants are identified against experimental observations. The degradation mechanism and damage growth patterning of simulated rock under uniaxial load are modeled numerically by implementing the theory for damage and surface degradation with initial state consideration. The theoretical results are compared with experimental observations obtained through ultrasonic scanning tests. To extend the study to post-instability modelling by using various constitutive models, three alternative considerations are proposed to achieve so-called regularization of the problem.