Effect of in-plane deformation on the cohesive failure of heterogeneous adhesives

The effect of in-plane deformations on the failure response of heterogeneous adhesives with a second phase of spherical elastic particles is investigated numerically using a 3D cohesive framework. The methodology includes a new interface-enriched generalized finite element scheme for the solution of structural problems with weak discontinuities, allowing for the efficient and accurate prediction of the stress and displacement fields in the adhesive based on finite element meshes that do not conform to the heterogeneities. A rate-dependent isotropic failure model is adopted to capture the failure in the matrix, while the stiff inclusions are assumed to be linearly elastic. Cohesive failure envelopes resulting from the micro-to-macro analysis are extracted for a wide variety of failure mode conditions. A study of 1611 the impact of in-plane tensile and shear strains on the macroscopic failure response under tensile (mode I) loading is also presented. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.