Prediction of ductile fracture in tension by bifurcation, localization, and imperfection analyses

In this investigation, it is shown that the onset of ductile fracture in tension can be interpreted as the result of a supercritical bifurcation of homogeneous deformation and that this fact can be applied to predict ductile fracture initiation of materials with general imperfections or flaws. We focus on one dimensional quasi-static simple tension for rate-independent isotropic plastic materials. For deformation beyond the bifurcation point, multiple equilibrium paths appear. The homogeneous deformation, as one of the equilibrium paths, loses stability while the inhomogeneous paths are stable, thus indicating the occurrence of strain localization. This investigation also provides a physical example for the application of the Lambert W function in material localization analyses. Material instability is treated as the instability of a static system with dynamic perturbation. We also address the presence of microvoids in a power law plastic material as an unfolding of the supercritical pitchfork bifurcation. The imperfect system, idealized as spherical voids within the plastic matrix, is analyzed using the familiar Gurson model which is based on the presumption of a randomly voided material and characterized by the volume fraction of voids. If, in addition, the sizes of the microvoids are known, this then provides a length scale for the imperfection zone. In this manner, relevance to the sample size effects of strain-to-failure for ductile fracture initiation is addressed by considering separate zones with variations in void volume fractions. Fracture initiation predictions are presented and compare very well to existing experimental results.