An anisotropic damage evolution model based on the maximum energy release rate

We derive the evolution of the anisotropic properties of a material damaged by microcracks. The evolution of the crack shall be governed by the maximu m energy release rate, which was recently shown by to be a direct consequen ce of the variational principle of a body with a crack (Le, Schutte & Stump f, Arch.Appl.Mech. 69:(5) 337-344,1999). From this we get the path of the g rowing crack and its influence on the bodies elastic properties. This evolu tion law will be embedded in a finite deformation framework based on a mult iplicative decomposition in elastic and damage parts. As a consequence of t his we can present the anisotropic damaged elasticity tensor with the help of push and pull operations.