Modeling description of interface shear deformation: A theoretical study on damage statistical distributions

The shear constitutive model is important for the analysis of the interface shear deformation mechanism. In this study, five statistical distributions, including four that have never been applied in interface shear deformation, are introduced to describe the damage evolution of the interface. The corresponding statistical damage constitutive models are developed, and they have been validated using a series of experimental data (both laboratory and in-situ tests) at the rock-concrete interface. The comparison results with laboratory data show that the Mitscherlich model has the lowest prediction accuracy. By comparing with in-situ data, the Weibull model shows the best-predicted performance. Based on the Akaike information criterion metric, the Morgan-Mercer-Flodin (MMF) model performs much better than the other models in the laboratory tests, which indicates the MMF model can be introduced for a comprehensive analysis of interface shear deformation. In addition, the similarities between the MMF model and the Weibull model are found through the canonical transformation of the MMF model. And the analysis of the two unknown parameters of the MMF model shows that they are related to the yield characteristics and strength characteristics of the interface, respectively. Based on the damage variable evolution, the shear deformation of the interface can be divided into three phases, i.e., damage initiation phase, damage acceleration phase and damage slowing phase. And the parameters of the MMF model have an important influence on the damage variable curves.