A smeared-embedded mesh-corrected damage model for tensile cracking

Abstract

Traditional smeared orthotropic models display an unacceptable dependence of the solution on the alignment of the mesh, which usually manifests as stress locking. A solution for this drawback is proposed in this paper by adopting the concept of embedded inelastic strains, rather than displacement jumps, and by linking the structure of the inelastic strain to the geometry of the cracked element. The resulting model, applicable to linear 3-noded triangles, is formulated as a non-symmetric orthotropic local damage constitutive model, with the softening modulus regularized according to the material fracture energy and the element size. Analytical and numerical results show that this approach is effective in removing the locking problem as well as efficient from the computational point of view. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.