BIAXIAL STRENGTH CRITERIA FOR AN ORTHOTROPIC LAMINA

The simplified failure envelopes are not derived from physical theories of failure in which the actual physical processes that cause failure on a microscopic level are integrated to obtain a failure theory. We, instead, deal with phenomenological theories in which we ignore the actual failure mechanisms and concentrate on the gross macroscopic events of failure. Phenomenological theories are based on curve-fitting, so they are failure criteria and not theories of any kind (the term theory implies a formal derivation process). 

The simplified failure envelopes differ little from the concept of yield surfaces in the theory of plasticity. Both the failure envelopes (or surfaces) and the yield surfaces (or envelopes) represent the end of linear elastic behavior under a multiaxial stress state. The limits of linear elastic 

---