A unified theory for cavity expansion in cohesive-frictional micromorphic media

This paper presents a unified theory for both cylindrical and spherical cavity expansion problems in cohesive-frictional micromorphic media. A phenomenological strain-gradient plasticity model in conjunction with a generalized Mohr–Coulomb criterion is employed to characterize the elasto-plastic behavior of the material. To solve the resultant two-point boundary-value problem (BVP) of fourth-order homogeneous ordinary differential equation (ODE) for the governing equations which is not well-conditioned in certain cases, several numerical methods are developed and are compared in terms of robustness, efficiency and accuracy. Using one of the finite difference methods that shows overall better performance, both cylindrical and spherical cavity expansion problems in micromorphic media are solved. The influences of microstructural properties on the expansion response are clearly demonstrated. Size effect during the cavity expansion is captured. The proposed theory is also applied to a revisit of the classic problem of stress concentration around a cavity in a micromorphic medium subjected to isotropic tension at infinity, for which some conclusions made in early studies are revised. The proposed theory can be useful for the interpretation of indentation tests at small scales.