A novel isotropic quasi-brittle damage model applied to LCF analyses of Al2024

The current paper deals with the assessment and the numerical simulation of low cycle fatigue of an aluminum 2024 alloy. According to experimental observations, the material response of Al2024 is highly direction-dependent showing a material behavior between ductile and brittle. In particular, in its corresponding (small transversal) S-direction, the material behavior can be characterized as quasi-brittle. For the modeling of such a mechanical response, a novel, fully coupled isotropic ductile–brittle continuum damage mechanics model is proposed. Since the resulting model shows a large number of material parameters, an efficient, hybrid parameter identification strategy is discussed. Within this strategy, as many parameters as possible have been determined a priori by exploiting analogies to established theories (like Paris’ law), while the remaining free unknowns are computed by solving an optimization problem. Comparisons between the experimentally observed and the numerically simulated lifetimes reveal the prediction capability of the proposed model.