ABSTRACT
As discussed in the previous chapter, the purpose of peridynamics is to unify the mechanics of continuous media, continuous media with evolving discontinuities, and discrete particles. To accomplish this, peridynamics avoids the use of partial derivatives of the deformation with respect to spatial coordinates. Instead, it uses integral equations that remain valid on discontinuities. Discrete particles, as will be discussed later in this chapter, are treated using Dirac delta functions.
