Preface

Abstract

The studies on the subject of damage and fracture mechanics and related research works in China have achieved significant progress and contributed to the developments of engineering and technology during the last two decades. To reflect the recent achievements in the subject gained in Mainland China and to enhance the cross-fertilization between the Chinese researchers and the International Journal of Damage Mechanics as well as the international readers of the journal, we present this series of special issues of 'Damage Mechanics in China'.Owing to the limitation in space, only 10 papers are included in the special issues. Nevertheless, these 10 papers bring together leading scholars and researchers from various material disciplines, covering metals (Papers 1, 4, 6), rocks (Papers 2, 7, 8), concrete (Papers 3, 10) and composites (Papers 5, 9), encompassing analytical, numerical and experimental aspects.Recognizing the deficiency of the current issues in providing a comprehensive survey of damage mechanics in China, we first attempt to present a brief review of previous work in the studies on damage mechanics in China, and then give a brief overview of all 10 papers presented in the special issues.In accordance with the rapid development of large scale engineering projects in China, particularly for infrastructures and industrial equipments in large scales, the works on damage in materials and structures under various loading conditions have gained rapid progress recently, covering metals, composites, rocks, and concretes, etc. Among these works, some enlightening observations, novel concepts, new computational algorithms, and innovative framework on damage mechanics have emerged.As early as the 1960s in the twentieth century, (Xing, 1966) proposed a nonequilibrium statistical theory of damage and fracture, in which the micro-damage evolution describing its nucleation and growth was presented by means of the Fokker-Planck equation with a nucleation term. The coefficients of the equation, the micro-damage growth rate and nucleation rate result from microscopic dislocation or point defect mechanism. From this equation, the new statistical damage concept for solids the damage-fracture probability with its kinetic equation was introduced. The macro-mechanical quantities related to damage and fracture such as brittle strength, fracture toughness, fatigue life, fatigue strength and their statistical