Continuum Damage Mechanics Based Simulation of Ductile Fracture of Cylindrical Tubes

Abstract

The importance of impact problems has led to extensive research work over the years. In an impact phenomenon, the material is subjected to very short duration high force levels resulting in large plastic deformations and significant temperature rise. One of the most common phenomena of the impact problem is the occurrence of fracture. Fracture occurs when the velocity of impact is very high. In metal, it will lead to ductile fracture. Ductile fracture generally takes place due to void nucleation, then the growth of the nucleated voids and at last voids coalescence to form a micro-crack. A number of studies on ductile fracture and damage simulation in static condition have been carried out using this approach. But, there is a limited study on the prediction of fracture in impact problems. In impact problems, the effects of strain rate, stress triaxiality, and temperature on material behavior become significant. In the present work, damage growth, and effect of high strain rate are studied for ductile fracture during the high-velocity impact of cylindrical tubes using commercial finite element (FE) software ABAQUS/Explicit using continuum damage mechanics (CDM). It is shown that CDM-based modeling is able to capture the failure of the tubes.