Local-solution approach to quasistatic rate-independent mixed-mode delamination

The model of quasistatic rate-independent evolution of a delamination at small strains in the so-called mixed mode, i.e. distinguishing opening (Mode I) from shearing (Mode II), devised in [Delamination and adhesive contact models and their mathematical analysis and numerical treatment, Chap. 9, in Mathematical Methods and Models in Composites, ed. V. Mantic (Imperial College Press, 2014), pp. 349–400; and in Quasistatic mixed-mode delamination model, Discrete Contin. Dynam. Syst. Ser. S 6 (2013) 591–610], is rigorously analyzed in the context of a concept of stress-driven local solutions. The model has separately convex stored energy and is associative, namely the one-homogeneous potential of dissipative forces driving the delamination depends only on rates of internal parameters. An efficient fractional-step-type semi-implicit discretization in time is shown to converge to (specific, stress-driven like) local solutions that may approximately obey the maximum-dissipation principle. Making still a spatial discretization, this convergence as well as relevancy of such solution concept are demonstrated on a nontrivial two-dimensional example.