A Coupled Computational Framework for Ductile Damage and Fracture

Metal forming processes generally introduce a certain amount of damage in the material being formed. Predictions of the damage formation and growth in a series of forming steps may assist in optimising the individual operations and their order. This is particularly true for operations such as cutting and blanking, which rely on the nucleation of damage and cracks in order to separate material. The precise moment and location of crack initiation and the trajectory followed by the crack(s) have an important influence on the quality of the products resulting from these processes. Since the nucleation and growth of cracks may be influenced by damage induced in previous forming steps, simulations require an integral approach towards damage and fracture. For this purpose we have developed a coupled damage-fracture framework, which uses a nonlocal continuum damage approach to model the evolution of material damage and full remeshing to trace the crack growth.