ABSTRACT
Following the first pioneering paper of Kachanov (1958) on damage mechanics, many different types of damage models have been introduced such as ductile fracture (Sidoroff, 1981; Cordebois and Sidoroff, 1979; Cordebois, 1983; Lee, et al., 1985; Chow and Wang, 1987, 1988), fatigue of metals (Lemaitre, 1971; Chaboche, 1974), creep and creep-fatigue problems (Leckie and Hayhurst, 1974; Hult, 1974; Lemaitre and Chaboche, 1975), and other types of damage (Lemaitre, 1984).
