A cohesive zone model with rate-sensitivity for fast crack propagation

•A rate-sensitive cohesive model is presented to describe variations in the dissipation power with crack speed.•The cohesive law is consistent with subscale mechanisms that come into play beyond a critical threshold.•A robust implementation is achieved and numerical results show a close agreement with experimental data.

We study mode-I dynamic crack propagation using the cohesive-zone methodology. Subscale processes are represented via a form of rate-sensitivity, which translates to the macroscopic level the effects of micro-cracking. Namely, rate-sensitivity is included in the model in a way that it is directly related to the speed of the crack front that is typically measured during experiments. A representative numerical example is discussed that demonstrates the effectiveness of the proposed approach.