ABSTRACT
ABSTRACT: The entropy production is a non-negative quantity based on irreversible thermodynamics and thus can serve as a basis for the systematic description of the irreversible processes occurring in a solid. In this paper, a thermodynamic framework has been presented for damage mechanics of solids materials, where entropy production is used as the sole measure of damage in the system. As a result, there is no need for physically meaningless empirical parameters to define a phenomenological damage potential surface or a Wei bull function to trace damage evolution in solid continuum. In order to validate the model, predictions are compared with experimental results, which indicates that entropy production can be used as a damage evolution metric. The theory is founded on the basic premise that a solid continuum obeys the first and the second laws of thermodynamics.
