A Quasi-Brittle damage model in the framework of Bond-based Peridynamics with Adaptive Dynamic Relaxation method

Peridynamics (PD) is a new tool, based on the non-local theory for modelling fracture mechanics, where particles connected through physical interaction used to represent a domain. By using the PD theory, damage or crack in a material domain can be shown in much practical representation. This study compares between Prototype Microelastic Brittle (PMB) damage model and a new Quasi-Brittle (QBR) damage model in the framework of the Bond-based Peridynamics (BBPD) in terms of the damage plot. An in-house code using Matlab was developed for BBPD with inclusion of both damage models, and tested for a quasi-static problem with the implementation of Adaptive Dynamic Relaxation (ADR) method in the theory in order to get a faster steady state solutions. This paper is the first attempt to include ADR method in the framework of BBPD for QBR damage model. This paper analysed a numerical problem with the absence of failure and compared the displacement with literature result that used Finite Element Method (FEM). The obtained numerical results are in good agreement with the result from FEM. The same problem was used with the allowance of the failure to happen for both of the damage models; PMB and QBR, to observe the damage pattern between these two damage models. PMB damage model produced damage value of roughly twice compared to the damage value from QBR damage model. It is found that the QBR damage model with ADR under quasi-static loading significantly improves the prediction of the progressive failure process, and managed to model a more realistic damage model with respect to the PMB damage model.

Multi-Axial Hybrid Fire Testing based on Dynamic Relaxation

This technical note presents the experimental validation of a hybrid fire testing coordination algorithm recently developed by some of the authors. For the first time, the algorithm is applied to solve the static response of a multiple-degrees-of-freedom hybrid model.

A Form-Finding Method for Branching Structures Based on Dynamic Relaxation

Branching structure is often used as a supporting structure of the grid shell due to its geometrical and force-transferring features, and the rationality of its shape is very important. The “physical” and “numerical” hanging models can be used for the joint form-finding of the branching structure and free-form grid shell. However, slack elements may exist in the equilibrium model which corresponds to the inefficient members in the form-found branching structure. To solve this problem, a form-finding method of branching structure based on dynamic relaxation is proposed in this study. The proposed method clusters the elements of the branching model and equalizes the axial forces of the elements in the same cluster, in other words, there are no slack elements in the equilibrium branching model. This method overcomes the defect that the equilibrium branching model may have slack elements and needs many manual adjustments during the procedure of determining the rational shape of a branching structure, and effectively prevents the inefficient members existing in the form-found structure. Numerical examples are provided to demonstrate the characteristics of the proposed method and its effectiveness is verified as well.