A unified nonlocal method for capturing discontinuous and multi‐physical behaviors of quasi‐brittle materials

Abstract A unified nonlocal method (UNM) is developed to simulate discontinuous and multi‐physical coupling dynamic behaviors for quasi‐brittle materials. In the proposed method, unified nonlocal momentum equations and constitutive laws are proposed to capture the nonlocal fluid transport effect and loading‐rate effect of quasi‐brittle materials. A general multiscale framework, which couples the proposed nonlocal method and the finite element method (FEM), is presented to accelerate the computational efficiency. The effectiveness and accuracy of this method are verified by comparing its results with experimental observations. Numerical examples show that the proposed model can well simulate the discontinuous and multi‐physical behaviors of quasi‐brittle materials, which can serve an effective numerical method for the simulation of engineering problems such as failure of concrete structures.