Micromechanical Interpretation of the Dissipation Associated With Mode I Propagation of Microcracks in Brittle Materials

This paper deals with the dissipation associated with quasistatic microcracking of brittle materials exhibiting softening behavior. For this purpose an elastodamaging cohesive zone model is used, in which cohesive tractions decrease (during crack propagation) with increasing displacement discontinuities. Constant cohesive tractions are included in the model as a limiting special case. Considering a representative volume element containing a dilute distribution of many parallel microcracks, we quantify energy dissipation associated with mode I microcrack propagation. This is done in the framework of thermodynamics, without restricting assumptions on the size of the cohesive zones. Model predictions are compared with exact solutions, which are accessible for constant cohesive tractions. The proposed model reliably predicts both onset of crack propagation and the dissipation during microcracking. It is shown that the energy release rate is virtually equal to the area under the softening curve, if the microscopic tensile strength is at least twice as large as the macroscopic tensile strength. This result justifies approaches relying on the concept of constant energy release rate, such as those frequently used in the engineering practice.