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 statis...

The interlaminar fracture toughness in pure mode II (GIIc) of a Carbon-Fibre Reinforced Plastic (CFRP) composite is characterized experimentally and numerically in this work, using the End-Notched Flexure (ENF) fracture characterization test. The value of GIIc was extracted by a new data reduction scheme avoiding the crack length measurement, named Compliance-Based Beam Method (CBBM). This meth...

In this paper we present an overview of the possibilities of the finite increment calculus (FIC) approach for deriving computational methods in mechanics with improved numerical properties for stability and accuracy. The basic concepts of the FIC procedure are presented in its application to problems of advection-diffusion-reaction, fluid mechanics and fluid-structure interaction solved with th...

Modern transportation, medical, and leisure equipment are often manufactured with non-metallic composite materials bonded adhesives. Numerical analyses of these joints commonly performed using the Finite Element Method (FEM). In adhesive joints, bond line is small compared to substrates requiring highly refined meshes perform analyses. Also, adhesives can reach higher strains substrates, so cau...

A classical continuum mechanics model no longer fulfills its basic assumptions, when the deformations are not smooth or discontinuous. Peridynamics (PD) as an integral formulation could better overcome these issues. Therefore, it is suited to solve fracture problems such crack initiation, growth and formation of patterns. In PD magnitudes internal forces at a material point depend on collective...

We study edge-oriented FEM stabilizations w.r.t. linear multigrid solvers and data structures with the goal to examine the efficiency of such stabilizations due to the extending matrix stencil which is not supported by standard FEM data structures. A new edge-oriented data structure has been developed to support the additional coupling. So, the local element-wise and edge-wise matrices are easi...

This paper presents some recent advances in the boundary element method (BEM) for the analysis of carbon nanotube (CNT)-based composites. Carbon nanotubes, formed conceptually by rolling thin graphite sheets, have been found to be extremely stiff, strong and resilient, and therefore may be ideal for reinforcing composite materials. However, the thin cylindrical shape of the CNTs presents great ...

This paper investigates the lateral vibration of single-layered graphene sheets based on a new theory called doublet mechanics with a length scale parameter. After a brief reviewing of doublet mechanics fundamentals, a sixth order partial differential equation that governs the lateral vibration of single-layered graphene sheets is derived. Using doublet mechanics, the relation between natural f...