Macroscopic damage modeling for silicon nitride

Modeling the damage of brittle materials is of great importance considering a variety of structural components. Prominent examples are high strength engineering ceramics. The present work is concerned with silicon nitride, a material with increasing relevance in industrial applications. In the sense of a hierarchical model structure, effective properties of micromechanical simulations were applied to macroscopic, phenomenological damage models for monotonous and cyclic loading. In the following, both models are introduced and the application of the cyclic damage model to a four point bending test is discussed.