A finite element formulation to identify damage fields: the equilibrium gap method

It is proposed to determine damage parameters in two dimensions (surface of a material) or three dimensions (in the bulk of a solid) by using full-field displacement measurements. A finite-element approach is developed to evaluate piece-wise constant elastic parameters modeled by an isotropic damage variable. Two sets of examples are discussed. The first series deals with mechanical fields obtained by finite element simulations to assess the performance of the approach. The second series is concerned with displacement measurements performed during a biaxial test on a composite material. Copyright (C) 2004 John Wiley Sons, Ltd.