A nonlocal model with strain-based damage

A thermodynamically consistent formulation of nonlocal damage in the framework of the internal variable theories of inelastic behaviours of associative type is presented. The damage behaviour is defined in the strain space and the effective stress turns out to be additively splitted in the actual stress and in the nonlocal counterpart of the relaxation stress related to damage phenomena. An important advantage of models with strain-based loading functions and explicit damage evolution laws is that the stress corresponding to a given strain can be evaluated directly without any need for solving a nonlinear system of equations. A mixed nonlocal variational formulation in the complete set of state variables is presented and is specialized to a mixed two-field variational formulation. Hence a finite element procedure for the analysis of the elastic model with nonlocal damage is established on the basis of the proposed two-field variational formulation. Two examples concerning a one-dimensional bar in simple tension and a two-dimensional notched plate are addressed. No mesh dependence or boundary effects are apparent. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.