Coupling local and non-local damage evolutions with the Thick Level Set model

Background The Thick Level Set model (TLS) is a recent method to delocalize local constitutive models suffering spurious localization. It has two major advantages compared to other delocalization methods. The first one is that the transition from localization to fracture is taken into account in the model. The second one is that the delocalization only acts when and where needed. In other words, the TLS has no effect when the local model is stable. The former advantage was already detailed in several papers (IJNME 86:358-380, 2011, CMAME 233:11-27, 2012, IJF 174:49-60, 2012). This paper concentrates on the latter advantage.