Building of a reduced constitutive law for ceramic matrix composites

The aim of this paper is to set up a methodology in order to build a reduced constitutive law in case of a complex material behavior. The reduction is performed in a certain range of loading conditions in order to preserve the state potential describing the original complex model. Two main steps are used. The first one concerns the reduction of the kinematic of the internal variables from which the associated thermodynamical forces are deduced. In order to define the internal variables, a simple thermodynamic potential form is chosen. The second concerns the building of the evolution laws linking the previous variables. The presented methodology has been applied to the mechanical modeling of SiC/SiC ceramic matrix composites.