Relaxed Incremental Variational Formulation for Damage in Fiber‐Reinforced Materials

Abstract

An incremental variational formulation for damage at finite strains is proposed based on the classical continuum damage mechanics. Since loss of convexity is obtained at some critical deformations a relaxed incremental stress potential is constructed which convexifies the original non-convex problem. The resulting model can be interpreted as the homogenization of a micro-heterogeneous material bifurcated into a strongly and weakly damaged phase at the microscale. A one-dimensional relaxed formulation is derived and based thereon, a model for fiber-reinforced materials is given. Finally, some numerical examples illustrate the performance of the model.