This note discusses the peridynamic horizon (the nonlocal region around a material point), its role, and practical use in modeling. The objective is to eliminate some misunderstandings and misconceptions regarding the peridynamic horizon. An example of crack branching in a nominally brittle material (homalite) is addressed and we show that crack branching takes place without wave interaction. W...

In this paper, we present some results on a posteriori error analysis of finite element methods for solving linear nonlocal diffusion and bond-based peridynamic models. In particular, we aim to propose a general abstract frame work for a posteriori error analysis of the peridynamic problems. A posteriori error estimators are consequently prompted, the reliability and efficiency of the estimator...

We study the kinetics of phase transformations in solids using the peridynamic formulation of continuum mechanics. The peridynamic theory is a nonlocal formulation that does not involve spatial derivatives, and is a powerful tool to study defects such as cracks and interfaces. We apply the peridynamic formulation to the motion of phase boundaries in one dimension. We show that unlike the classi...

The numerical analysis of spontaneously formed discontinuities such as cracks is a long-standing challenge in the engineering field. Approaches based on the mathematical framework of classical continuum mechanics fail to be directly applicable to describe discontinuities since the theory is formulated in partial differential equations, and a unique spatial derivative, however, does not exist on...

We develop a functional analytical framework for a linear peridynamic model of a spring network system in any space dimension. Various properties of the peridynamic operators are examined for general micromodulus functions. These properties are utilized to establish the well-posedness of both the stationary peridynamic model and the Cauchy problem of the time dependent peridynamic model. The co...

In this paper, a scalar peridynamic model is analyzed. The study extends earlier works in the literature on nonlocal diffusion and nonlocal peridynamic models to include a sign changing kernel. We prove the well-posedness of both variational problems with volume constraints and time-dependent equations with or without damping. The analysis is based on some nonlocal Poincaré type inequalities an...

A state-based peridynamic material model describes internal forces acting on a point in terms of the collective deformation of all the material within a neighborhood of the point. In this paper, the response of a state-based peridynamic material is investigated for a small deformation superposed on a large deformation. The appropriate notion of a small deformation restricts the relative displac...

The peridynamic method is used here to analyse the effect of van der Waals forces on the mechanical behaviour and strength and toughness properties of three-dimensional nanofibre networks under imposed stretch deformation. The peridynamic formulation allows for a natural inclusion of long-range forces (such as van der Waals forces) by considering all interactions as ‘long-range’. We use van der...

We introduce a multidimensional peridynamic formulation for transient heat-transfer. The model does not contain spatial derivatives and uses instead an integral over a region around a material point. By construction, the formulation converges to the classical heat transfer equations in the limit of the horizon (the nonlocal region around a point) going to zero. The new model, however, is suitab...

A methodology is presented for investigating the dynamics of heterogeneous media using the nonlocal continuum model given by the peridynamic formulation. The approach presented here provides the ability to model the macroscopic dynamics while at the same time resolving the dynamics at the length scales of the microstructure. Central to the methodology is a novel two-scale evolution equation. Th...