Dynamic failure of solids

This paper reviews recent attempts to construct a microstatistical fracture mechanics; that is, a methodology that relates the kinetics of material failure on the microstructural level to continuum mechanics. The approach is to introduce microstructural descriptions of damage into the continuum constitutive relations as internal state variables. The microstructural damage descriptions are based on dynamic and quasi-static experiments with carefully controlled load amplitudes and durations. The resulting constitutive relations describe the nucleation, growth, and coalescence of the microscopic voids and cracks, and therefore in principle describe both quasi-static and dynamic fracture on the continuum scale. The paper describes several such kinetics models in detail, shows examples of several engineering applications, and discusses the link between microstatistical fracture mechanics and continuum fracture mechanics.