A study of localized failure modes in brittle materials

• Main Author: Burger, B B
• Other Authors: Resende, Luís Nuno da Costa
• Format: Dissertation
• Language: Eng
• Published: University of Cape Town 2016
• Subjects: Civil Engineering
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/11427/17652

Localization studies arise from the need to accurately model the behaviour of materials which exhibit instabilities due to strain softening or geometric effects. Localization in finite element modelling of brittle materials such as concrete and rock is a relatively unexplored area in computational mechanics, and this work applies current concepts to an isotropic damage model. The onset of localization is characterised by a bifurcation, where spatially uniform deformation is replaced by highly localized bands of large strain. Simple bifurcation analysis techniques are used, and are shown to extend the present predictive capability of the damage model and to indicate the direction of further refinement. Numerical studies of localization in concrete and norite are presented, together with boundary value problems of importance in mining applications. It is shown that qualitative agreement is obtained with experimental results.