A variational formulation of nonlocalmaterials withmicrostructure based on dual macro‐ and micro‐balances

Abstract

AbstractWe investigate a variational setting of nonlocal materials with microstructure and outline aspects of its numerical implementation. Thereby, the current state of the evolving microstructure is described by independent global degrees in addition to the macroscopic displacement field, so‐called order parameters. Focussing on standard‐dissipative materials, the constitutive response is governed by two fundamental functions for the energy storage and the dissipation. Based on these functions, a global dissipation postulate is introduced. Its exploitation constitutes a global variation formulation of nonlocal materials, which can be related to a minimization principle. Following this methodology, we end up with coupled macro‐ and microscopic field equations and corresponding boundary conditions. On the numerical side, we consider the weak counterpart of these coupled field equations and obtain after linearization a fully coupled system for increments of the displacement and the order parameters. Due to the underlying variational structure, this system of equations is symmetric. In order to show the capability of the proposed setting, we specify the above outlined scenario to a model problem of isotropic damage mechanics. (© 2008 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)