Basic topics in damage pseudo-potentials

The meaning and the possible construction of the so-called damage potentials, used frequently in models describing the progressive failure of materials, are analyzed within the setting of a general framework for damage models. The treatment holds for both internal variable models (in which damage variables are considered as quantities that are not observable, and only kinetic equations describe their evolution) and a larger setting of multifield theories (in which damage variables satisfy appropriate balance equations of internal interactions).