TY - EJOU AU - Gao, Lingfei AU - Zheng, Xiaoping AU - Yao, Zhenhan TI - Numerical Simulation of Elastic Behaviour and Failure Processes in Heterogeneous Material T2 - Computers, Materials \& Continua PY - 2006 VL - 3 IS - 1 SN - 1546-2226 AB - A general numerical approach is developed to model the elastic behaviours and failure processes of heterogeneous materials. The heterogeneous material body is assumed composed of a large number of convex polygon lattices with different phases. These phases are locally isotropic and elastic-brittle with the different lattices displaying variable material parameters and a Weibull-type statistical distribution. When the effective strain exceeds a local fracture criterion, the full lattice exhibits failure uniformly, and this is modelled by assuming a very small Young modulus value. An auto-select loading method is employed to model the failure process. The proposed hybrid approach is applied to plane stress problems with fracture patterns and effective load-displacement curves presented to illustrate the full failure process. KW - Heterogeneous materials KW - Weibull distribution KW - Elastic-brittle model KW - Failure process KW - Finite element method DO - 10.3970/cmc.2007.003.025