GENERAL EXPRESSIONS OF CONSTITUTIVE EQUATIONS FOR ISOTROPIC ELASTIC DAMAGED MATERIALS

The general expressions of constitutive equations for isotropic elastic damaged materials were derived directly from the basic law of irreversible thermodynamics. The limitations of the classical damage constitutive equation based on the well-known strain equivalence hypothesis were overcome. The relationships between the two elastic isotropic damage models (i.e. single and double scalar damage models) were revealed. When a single scalar damage variable defined according to the microscopic geometry of a damaged material is used to describle the isotropic damage state, the constitutive equations contain two 'damage effect functions', which describe the different influences of damage on the two independent elastic, constants. The classical damage constitutive equation based on the strain equivalence hypothesis is only the first-order approximation of the general expression. It may be unduly simplified and may fail to describe satisfactorily the damage phenomena of practical materials.

Stochastic response analysis of damaged elastic beams

Great progress has been made in study on dynamic behavior of the damaged structures subject to deterministic excitation.The stochastic response analysis of the damaged structures,however,has not yet attracted people's attention.Taking the damaged elastic beams for example,the analysis procedure for stochastic response of the damaged structures subject to stochastic excitations is investigated in this paper.First,the damage constitutive relations and the corresponding damage evolution equation of one-dimensional elastic structures are briefly discussed.Second,the stochastic dynamic equation with respect to transverse displacement of the damaged elastic beams is deduced.The finite difference method and Newmark method are adopted to solve the stochastic partially-differential equation and corresponding boundary conditions.The stochastic response characteristic,damage evolution law,the effect of noise intensity on damage evolution and the first-passage time of damage are discussed in detail.The present work extends the research field of damaged structures,and the proposed procedure can be generalized to analyze the dynamic behavior of more complex structures,such as damaged plates and shells.

Simulation of Fatigue Stiffness Degradation in Prestressed Concrete Beams under Cyclic Loading

In order to investigate and research the fatigue cracking of prestressed concrete fatigue properties and loading and stiffness degeneration process,cyclic loading tests were carried out on six prestressed concrete beams and the stiffness degradation under fatigue was investigated. A simulation model of stiffness degradation is proposed based on the stiffness analysis of the fatigue-damaged section. The elastic modulus of damaged concrete and the effective residual area of steel were introduced as well as an adjusted three-stage concrete fatigue damage evolution model. The strip method was used to analyze concrete damage due to changing stress along the depth of the beam section. The simulation and test results were compared and a method of predicting fatigue deflection was presented based on the simulation model. The predicted results were compared with that of the neural network method. It is in good agreement for the simulation results with the test results. It is only less than5% error for the simulation model which can reveal the two-stage degradation of prestressed concrete beams under cyclic loading. It is more precise for the simulation prediction method under proper conditions.