Author(s)

B. Kroplin and S. Weihe

Abstract

Material fracture is usually characterized by a well defined geometrical fail- ure pattern which defines an orientational preference for the degradation of the material strength and/or the material stiffness. This geometrical informa- tion is used to formulate a two-level simulation technique: the constitutive re- lationships are defined with respect to a generic plane of degradation (POD) and all material parameters which characterize the fracture process are defined with respect to the POD. The orientation of the POD will be uniquely defined and subsequently utilized to implement the transition between the POD and the three-dimensional continuum. The obtained constitutive model is thus able to predict the fracture induced anisotropy of the material. The differences to the corresponding isotropic version of the

Keywords