An Entropy-Based Damage Characterization

This paper presents a scientific basis for the description of the causes of damage within an irreversible thermodynamic framework and the effects of damage as observable variables that signify degradation of structural integrity. The approach relies on the fundamentals of irreversible thermodynamics and specifically the notion of entropy generation as a measure of degradation and damage. We first review the state-of-the-art advances in entropic treatment of damage followed by a discussion on generalization of the entropic concept to damage characterization that may offers a better definition of damage metric commonly used for structural integrity assessment. In general, this approach provides the opportunity to described reliability and risk of structures in terms of fundamental science concepts. Over the years, many studies have focused on materials damage assessment by determining physics-based cause and affect relationships, the goal of this paper is to put this work in perspective and encourage future work of materials damage based on the entropy concept.