Damage smoothing effects in a delocalized rate sensitivity model for metals

Abstract

It has been long time established that application of damage delocalization method to softening constitutive models yields numerical results that are independent of the size of the finite element. However, the prediction of real-world large and small scale problems using the delocalization method remains in its infancy. One of the drawbacks encountered is that the predicted load versus displacement curve suddenly drops, as a result of excessive smoothing of the damage. The present paper studies this unwanted effect for a delocalized plasticity/damage model for metallic materials. We use some theoretical arguments to explain the failure of the delocalized model considered, following which a simple remedy is proposed to deal with it. Future works involve the numerical implementation of the new version of the delocalized model in order to assess its ability to reproduce real-world problems.