ABSTRACT
Abstract This work consists of three parts, aimed at understanding the relation between fracture characteristics (pattern) and material properties. Integration of the three parts suggests that the mechanisms behind the complex fracturing process of a material may be simple. The first part examines the implications of material heterogeneity on phenomenological constitutive relations. The relevant kinematic quantities are described statistically either as random fields or as scaling fields. An important analogy is found between the statistical formulation and micro-structural theories where higher order gradients of deformation appear in the constitutive equations. The second part considers brittle fracture, uses the same statistical description of kinematic quantities as in part one, and examines, under either "fast" or "slow" crack propagation conditions, the possibility that the fracture network that will develop has fractal properties. The third part, now at the development stage, looks closer at the deformation field prior to fracture initiation. It utilizes wavelet analysis and brings in the effect of scale - specified by the wavelet transform of the deformation field - on material response.
