Research on low cycle fatigue life prediction considering average strain

To address the difficult problems in the study of the effect of average strain on fatigue life under low-cycle fatigue loads, the effect of average strain on the low-cycle fatigue life of materials under different strain cycle ratios was discussed based on the framework of damage mechanics and its irreversible thermodynamics. By introducing the Ramberg-Osgood cyclic constitutive equation, a new low-cycle fatigue life prediction method based on the intrinsic damage dissipation theory considering average strain was proposed, which revealed the correlation between low-cycle fatigue strain life , material properties, and average strain. Through the analysis of the low-cycle fatigue test data of five different metal materials, the model parameters of the corresponding materials were obtained. The calculation results indicate that the proposed life prediction method is in good agreement with the test, and a reasonable characterization of the low-cycle fatigue life under the influence of average strain is realized. Comparing calculations with three typical low-cycle fatigue life prediction models, the new method is within two times the error band, and the prediction effect is significantly better than the existing models, which is more suitable for low-cycle fatigue life prediction. The low-cycle fatigue life prediction of different cyclic strain ratios based on the critical region intrinsic damage dissipation power method provides a new idea for the research of low-cycle fatigue life prediction of metallic materials.

Modelling lead-rubber seismic isolation bearings using the unified mechanics theory

Lead-rubber seismic isolation bearings (LRB) have been installed in a number of essential and critical structures, like hospitals, universities and bridges, in order to provide them with period lengthening and the capacity of dissipating a considerable amount of energy to mitigate the effects of strong ground motions. Therefore, studying the damage mechanics of this kind of devices is fundamental to understand and accurately describe their thermo-mechanical behavior, so that seismically isolated structures can be designed more safely. Hitherto, the hysteretic behavior of LRB has been modeled using 1) Newtonian mechanics and empirical curve fitting degradation functions, or 2) heat conduction theories and idealized bilinear curves which include degradation effects. The reason for using models that are essentially phenomenological or that contain some adjusted parameters is the fact that Newton’s universal laws of motion lack the term to account for degradation and energy loss of a system. In this paper, the Unified Mechanics Theory – which integrates laws of Thermodynamics and Newtonian mechanics – is used to model the force-displacement response of LRB. Indeed, there is no need for curve fitting techniques to describe their damage behavior because degradation is calculated at every point using entropy generation along the Thermodynamics State Index (TSI) axis. A finite element model of a lead-rubber bearing was constructed in ABAQUS, where a user material subroutine UMAT was implemented to define the Unified Mechanics Theory equations and the viscoplastic constitutive model for lead. Finite element analysis results were compared with experimental test data.

Inter-Element Crack Propagation with High-Order Stress Equilibrium Element

The present contribution proposes a formulation based on the use of hybrid equilibrium elements (HEEs), for the analysis of inter-element delamination and fracture propagation problems. HEEs are defined in terms of quadratic stress fields, which strongly verify both the homogeneous and inter-element equilibrium equations and they are employed with interfaces, initially exhibiting rigid behavior, embedded at the elements’ sides. The interface model is formulated in terms of the same degrees of freedom of the HEE, without any additional burden. The cohesive zone model (CZM) of the extrinsic interface is rigorously developed in the damage mechanics framework, with perfect adhesion at the pre-failure condition and with linear softening at the post-failure regime. After a brief review, the formulation is computationally tested by simulating the behavior of a double-cantilever-beam with diagonal loads; the obtained numerical results confirm the accuracy and potential of the method.

A review of continuum damage and plasticity in concrete: Part I – Theoretical framework

In the past few decades, extensive research on concrete modeling to predict behavior, crack propagation, microcrack coalescence by utilizing different approaches (fracture mechanics, continuum damage mechanics) were investigated theoretically and numerically. The presented paper aims to review the theoretical work of continuum concrete damage and plasticity modeling in part I of the work. The detailed theoretical work is presented with some of the supporting work related to multiscale modeling and phase-field modeling is also part of this paper. Few other applications related to rate-dependent models and fatigue in concrete are also discussed. In part II of this work, the review of numerical work limited to finite element is presented. Some open issues in concrete damage modeling and future research needed are also discussed in part II.