Modelling of strain softening materials based on equivalent damage force

The EDF model was implemented in the in-house developed coupled FEM-SPH code, where an explicit FEM code is coupled with a stable Total-Lagrange form of SPH. Its performance is demonstrated in the analysis of a dynamic one dimensional (1D) stress wave propagation problem, which was analytically solved by Bazant and Belytschko in 1985. For a range of loading rates that correspond to the material softening regime, the numerical results shown nonlocal character with a finite size of the damaged zone, controlled with the damage characteristic length, which can be experimentally determined and is an input parameter independent of the discretisation density.