Micromechanical and macroscopic models of ductile fracture in particle reinforced metallic materials

Abstract

This paper is aimed at developing two modules contributing to the overall framework of multi-scale modelling of ductile fracture of particle reinforced metallic materials. The first module is for detailed micromechanical analysis of particle fragmentation and matrix cracking of heterogeneous microstructures. The Voronoi cell FEM for particle fragmentation is extended in this paper to incorporate ductile failure through matrix cracking in the form of void growth and coalescence using a non-local Gurson–Tvergaard–Needleman (GTN) model. In the resulting enriched Voronoi cell finite element model (VCFEM) or E-VCFEM, the assumed stress-based hybrid VCFEM formulation is overlaid with narrow bands of displacement based elements to accommodate strain softening in the constitutive behaviour. The second module develops an anisotropic plasticity-damage model in the form of the GTN model for macroscopic analysis in the multi-scale material model. Parameters in this model are calibrated from results of homogenization of microstructural variables obtained by E-VCFEM analysis of microstructural representative volume element. Numerical examples conducted yield satisfactory results.