Abstract It is indicated that composite material failures are always associated with the development of material interface damage which results from the creation, growth and coalescence of the microdefects. The analysis of interface damage behavior of material is a subject with high interest which has been studied over the last few decades. Although the theories of the interface damage mechanics are proposed and developed, the damage mechanism is still not fully understood. In this study, a novel model of damage mechanics is proposed by introducing the concept of material configurational force in the framework of thermodynamics with damage internal variables, which provides a new idea for studying interface damage. Both theoretical and numerical analyses are considered. First, the of the configurational force is presented based on the energy analysis of a two-phase elastic body. Then following the pioneering work by Mueller (2002), the numerical calculation of discrete configurational force is obtained via numerical integration based on the finite element method (FEM). Second, the damage evolution law of interface damage is modeled by considering the configurational force as damage internal variables, which is described by strength and the rigidity degradation. The damage may be developed by assuming the damage evolution to be a function of configurational force. Finally, numerical simulation of interface damage of composite materials (with crack or without crack) is carried out. The evolution of interface damage is analyzed in each analysis step. And the rationality and superiority of the proposed damage model are discussed. The proposed interface damage model via the configurational force may provide a new method for studying the interface damage failure of composite materials. This method is developed from the perspective of energy gradient which may both assure the precise mathematical form and bring definite physical meaning.
Received: 27 October 2017
Published: 28 August 2018
2018, Vol. 39 
