ALLOWANCE FOR THE STRUCTURE OF A MATERIAL WITHIN THE FRAMEWORK OF A MODEL OF THE MECHANICS OF FAILURE

The effect of the structure of a material on the predictions of the ETM model is analyzed. An ETM curve is plotted for a concrete specimen, taking the effect of the plastic zones near crack vertices and microscopic defects (cracks or rigid inclusions) into account. It is shown that since the corrections due to plastic zones and microdefects are of the same order of magnitude, their joint effect must be taken into account,