Abstract
A continuum theory recently proposed by the authors is applied to creep failure of hard rocks and short-term failure of granular materials. The governing equations of the proposed theory are formulated through the homogenization of an elastic body with many microdefcts. The constitutive relation of the present theory consists of the average stress-strain relation and the evolution equation of microdefects. The main feature of the theory is that the effect of interaction between microdefects is taken into account in the evolution equation. A new field variable is introduced to take into account the interaction effect and a governing equation for the new variable, which is an integral equation, is derived. Numerical results presented here confirm that the theory reproduces macroscopic failures induced by the localization of microdefects.
