Numerical modelling of localized fracture of inelastic solids in dynamic loading processes

Abstract

The main objective of the paper is the investigation of adiabatic shear band localized fracture phenomenon in inelastic solids during dynamic loading processes. This kind of fracture can occur as a result of an adiabatic shear band localization generally attributed to a plastic instability implied by microdamage and thermal softening during dynamic plastic flow processes. By applying ideas of synergetics it can be shown that as a result of instability hierarchies a system is self-organized into a new shear band pattern system. This leads to the conclusion that inelastic solid body considered during the dynamics process becomes a two-phase material system. Particular attention is focussed on attempt to construct a physically and experimentally justified localized fracture theory that relates the kinetics of material failure on the microstructural level to continuum mechanics. The description of the microstructural damage process is based on dynamic experiments with carefully controlled load amplitudes and duration. The microdamage process has been treated as a sequence of nucleation, growth and coalescence of microcracks. The microdamage kinetics interacts with thermal and load changes to make failure of solids a highly rate, temperature and history-dependent, non-linear process. The theory of thermoviscoplasticity is developed within the framework of the rate-type covariance material structure with a finite set of internal state variables. The theory takes into consideration the effects of microdamage mechanism and thermomechanical coupling. The dynamic failure criterion within localized shear band region is proposed. The relaxation time is used as a regularization parameter. Rate dependency (viscosity) allows the spatial differential operator in the governing equations to retain its ellipticity, and the initial-value problem is well-posed. The viscoplastic regularization procedure assures the unconditionally stable integration algorithm by using the finite element method. Particular attention is focused on the well-posedness of the evolution problem (the initial–boundary value problem) as well as on its numerical solutions. Convergence, consistency and stability of the discretized problem are discussed. The Lax equivalence theorem is formulated and conditions under which this theorem is valid are examined. Utilizing the finite element method and ABAQUS system for regularized elasto–viscoplastic model the numerical investigation of the three-dimensional dynamic adiabatic deformation in a particular body at nominal strain rates ranging over 103−104 s−1 is presented. A thin shear band region of finite width which undergoes significant deformation and temperature rise has been determined. Its evolution until occurrence of final fracture has been simulated. Numerical results are compared with available experimental observation data. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.