Time dependence of breakdown in a global fiber-bundle model with continuous damage - art. no. 066106

A time-dependent global fiber-bundle model of fracture with continuous dama ge is formulated in terms of a set of coupled nonlinear differential equati ons. A first integral of this set is analytically obtained. The time evolut ion of the system is studied by applying a discrete probabilistic method. S everal results are discussed emphasizing their differences with the standar d time-dependent model. The results obtained show that with this simple mod el a variety of experimental observations can be qualitatively reproduced.