Conventional continuum damage descriptions of material degeneration suffer from loss of well-posedness beyond a certain level of accumulated damage. As a consequence, numerical solutions are obtained which are unacceptable from a physical point of view. The introduction of higher-order deformation gradients in the constitutive model is demonstrated to be an adequate remedy to this deficiency of standard damage models. A consistent numerical solution procedure of the governing partial differential equations is presented, which is shown to be capable of properly simulating localization phenomena.

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Classical continuum models, i.e. continuum models that do not incorporate an internal length scale, suffer from excessive mesh dependence when strain-softening models are used in numerical analyses and cannot reproduce the size effect commonly observed in quasi-brittle failure. In this contribution three different approaches will be scrutinized which may be used to remedy these two intimately related deficiencies of the classical theory, namely (i) the addition of higher-order deformation gradients, (ii) the use of micropolar continuum models, and (iii) the addition of rate dependence. By means of a number of numerical simulations it will be investigated under which conditions these enriched continuum theories permit localization of deformation without losing ellipticity for static problems and hyperbolicity for dynamic problems. For the latter class of problems the crucial role of dispersion in wave propagation in strain-softening media will also be highlighted.

SUMMARYEigenmode analyses of the element stiffness matrices have been used to assess the impact of the applied integration scheme on the stress predictions of two-and three-dimensional plane interface elements. It is demonstrated that large stress gradients over the element and coupling of the individual node-sets of the interface element may result in an oscillatory type of response. For line elements and linear plane interface elements the performance can be improved by using either a nodal lumping scheme or Newton-Cotes or Lobatto integration schemes instead of the more traditional Gauss scheme. For quadratic interface elements the same holds true except for a nodal lumping scheme.

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