FRACTALS IN DAMAGE AND FRACTURE OF MATERIALS

The applications of fractal geometry to damage fracture of materials arc reviewed. The irregularity and roughness of fractured surface can be quantitatively represented by fractal dimension which is in turn related to fracture toughness. The damage evolution process is similar to percolation, and the unusual behavior of some properties at fracture or fragmentation is often related to certain scaling relations. These studies on complexity of fracture and physical mechanism of damage fracture are very importa...