ABSTRACT
Abstract This paper focuses on the determination of the universal trends in micro and macro response of brittle elastic solids weakened by a large number of microcracks. The spatial distribution of microcracks is assumed to be random and the evolution of damage a non-deterministic process. Rational analyses of this class of processes require consideration of many physical realizations to establish trends robust to the details of the disorder. For economy of computational effort a reasonable discretization used in statistical analyses of random processes must be simple and efficient. In the considered case brittle solid is approximated by a parallel bar model and a simple central-force lattice. The failure of these system, in force controlled conditions, turns out to be a second order phase transition. This ensures existence of universal trends such as phase transition thresholds and scaling laws which do not depend on the details of the microstructural topology.
