A 2D Peridynamic Model for Failure Analysis of Orthotropic Thin Plates Due to Bending

The present paper deals with the problem of cracks propagating in thin orthotropic flat plates under bending loads. We define the mechanical behavior of an orthotropic lamina in which shear deformation can be neglected (Kirchhoff plate). The formulation follows the main ideas of bond based Peridynamics. Failure criteria limit the maximum curvatures and provide failure values which may be different in different directions. Several numerical examples show that the results obtained with the new approach are in good agreement with those obtained with more classical computational methods. Moreover the numerically computed crack patterns seem to follow in a reasonable way the orthotropic properties of the models.