Conditions for shear localization in the ductile fracture of void-containing materials

Abstract

This paper investigates the possibility that ductile fracture occurs by the McClintock-Berg mechanism of localization of deformation within a narrow shear band, owing to the progressive softening of the material by increasing porosity due to void growth. The ductility predicted for a macroscopically homogeneous sample of a voided material is shown to be unrealistically large and hence an initial inhomogeneity of properties is considered, in the sense of an analysis by Marciniak and Kuczynski in the related problem of local necking in sheet metals. General conditions for a localization bifurcation with an initial inhomogeneity (imperfection), concentrating deformation to allow localization within it, are derived. The initial imperfection is taken in the form of a void-containing, thin slice of a material and is assumed to have a void volume fraction slightly larger than the outside of the imperfection. Elastic-plastic constitutive rate relations for void-containing materials proposed by Gurson are adapted to the conditions for the localization bifurcation. The critical conditions are analyzed numerically to discuss the sensitivity of localization conditions to an initial imperfection, in consideration of the implications for the theory of ductile fracture. The results suggest that the existence of an initial imperfection makes it possible for localization to occur at a reasonable strain, and the predictions from this analysis seem broadly consistent with reported experimental observations.