| Summary: | The work helps to understand the basic principles of damage growth and fracture processes in cementitious, ceramic, polymer and metal matrix composites. Nowadays, it is widely recognized that important macroscopic properties like the macroscopic stiffness and strength are governed by processes that occur at one to several scales below the level of macroscopic observation. Moreover, the microstructural and mesostructural levels are well-defined: the microstructural level can be associated with small particles or fibres, while the individual laminae can be identified at the mesoscopic level. For this reason, advances in multiscale modelling and analysis made here, pertain directly to classes of materials which either have a wider range of relevant microstructural scales, such as metals, or do not have a very well-defined microstructure, e.g. cementitious or ceramic composites.
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