Coupled plastic-damaged model Original Research Article

A constitutive model that couples plasticity and damage is presented. The model is thermodynamically consistent and comes from a generalization of classical plasticity theory and isotropic damage theory of Kachanov. Coupling between plasticity and damage is achieved through a simultaneous solution of the plastic and the damage problem. After a description of the model, a numerical algorithm for the integration of the resulting constitutive equations is presented. It is an Euler Backward type of algorithm that is particularly suitable to solve plain stress non-linear problems with a 2D finite element program. The consistent stiffness matrix is also derived. The paper is completed with some application examples that show that the model presented accurately reproduces the behaviour of elastic-plastic-damaged materials.