Overall moduli and constitutive relations of bodies containing multiple bridged microcracks

The overall moduli and non-linear constitutive relations of solids containing randomly oriented and parallel multiple bridged microcracks are studied in this paper, For both linear and non-linear bridging laws, two non-dimensional mixed parameters which play an important role in determining the overall moduli and constitutive properties are identified. It is shown that the overall moduli of a body containing bridged cracks can be derived from those of the body containing unbridged cracks of the same configuration with the crack density parameter being discounted by these two non-dimensional parameters. For non-linear bridging. attention is paid to the power-law bridging which represents the existing bridging laws in the literature. Particular emphasis is placed on the widely used square-root type bridging law. In this case. closed-form expressions for the overall non-linear constitutive relations are obtained. For a general power-law bridging, it is found that the overall constitutive behaviour of the cracked body is governed by Ramberg-Osgood type relations under strong bridging. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.http://gateway.webofknowledge.com/gateway/Gateway.cgi?GWVersion=2&SrcApp=PARTNER_APP&SrcAuth=LinksAMR&KeyUT=WOS:000175669900007&DestLinkType=FullRecord&DestApp=ALL_WOS&UsrCustomerID=8e1609b174ce4e31116a60747a720701MechanicsSCI(E)EI2ARTICLE82203-22143