STOCHASTIC MODELING OF HETEROGENEOUS MATERIALS - A PROCESS FOR THE ANALYSIS AND EVALUATION OF ALTERNATIVE FORMULATIONS

The paper addresses the problem of understanding and modeling the cons titutive behavior of complex, heterogeneous solid materials. Several i ssues in the area of stochastic material modeling remain open, thus a process for the analysis of different formulations is proposed and exa mined in detail. Using the proposed process, it is shown that a number of basic models are stochastically similar to each other. Furthermore , often, small apparently unimportant changes in a formulation may res ult in significant changes in the predicted response. For some formula tions, inequalities are established that when satisfied it is guarante ed that the entropy of a structure/system cannot decrease. Attention i s given to stochastic formulations within the context of non-local the ories because such formulations provide new information to the subject of localization of deformation and fracture toughness. (C) 1998 Elsev ier Science Ltd.