We investigate some mechanisms of the response, including fracture, of block geomedia to nonequiaxial compression in shear by the movable cellular automaton method. For a characteristic of the degree of nonequiaxiality it is proposed to use a dimensionless parameter which, according to calculations, is efficiently applicable to determine the deformation mode of a medium under constrained shear conditions. It is shown that increasing the compressive stress in the shear direction shortens the stage of quasiplastic deformation of a geomedium and decreases its shear strength. This is because mesoscale mechanisms of interblock discontinuity assume a leading part in the deformation and fracture of the geomedium with increasing the degree of constraint. The effect shows up, among other things, as an increase in effective dilatation rate of the shear zone due to the change of lower-scale deformation mechanisms for mechanisms of higher structural levels.

The paper studies the mechanical properties and configuration of plastic zones in notched high-strength structural steel under tension. Quantitative analysis of the plastic zones is made by constructing strain intensity distribution patterns with the use of the television-optical measuring complex TOMSC. Fracture associated with plastic flow is analyzed by comparing fractographs and distributions of strain characteristics. It is found that the fracture originates in a region with maximum strain intensity. It is shown that the mechanisms of plastic flow in high-strength steel specimens with P 1.58 and P 4.65, where P is the index of initial stress stiffness, differ considerably. It is demonstrated that the high-strength steel specimens are fractured by quasibrittle mechanisms; however, ductile micromechanisms through pore nucleation and growth remain operative at all stages of fracture.