Isochronous analysis of the behaviour of ceramic-matrix composites under thermomechanical cyclic loading conditions

The design of components made of ceramic-matrix composites requires computa tions of both fatigue and creep responses. Micromechanical analyses under m onotonic loading conditions have been integrated within the framework of co ntinuum thermodynamics. The extension to creep and/or fatigue loadings usua lly leads to a description of the state of the material with a large number of internal variables. In the present paper, an isochronous approach is pr esented in order to decrease this number, and therefore to give an answer w ith current computational facilities in a time equivalent to calculations f or monotonic loading conditions. The main objective of this paper is to pre sent and illustrate an original method that allows the designer to simplify the computation of the long-term analyses (i.e. fatigue, creep) to reduce the CPU time down to a monotonic analysis. (C) 2001 Published by Elsevier S cience Ltd. All rights reserved.