On the prediction of ductile fracture by void coalescence and strain localization

This paper presents a unit cell model based on the observation that ductile fracture occurs when plastic flow is localized in a band. The unit cell consists of three void containing material units stacked in the direction normal to the localization plane. Localization takes place in the middle material unit while the two outer units undergo elastic recovery after failure occurs. Thus a failure criterion is established as when the macroscopic effective strain of the outer material units reaches the maximum value. Analyses are conducted to demonstrate the effect of the voids existing outside the localization band. Comparisons of the present model with several previous models suggest that the present model is not only easy to implement in finite element analysis but also more suitable to robustly determine the failure strain. A series of unit cell analyses are conducted for various macroscopic stress triaxialities and Lode parameters. The analysis results confirm that for a fixed Lode parameter, the failure strain decreases exponentially with the stress triaxiality and for a given stress triaxiality, it increases as the stress state approaches the generalized tension and generalized compression. The analysis results also reveal the effect of the stress state on the deformed void shape within and near the localization band.