On the effect of imperfections and spatial gradient regularization in strain softening viscoplasticity (Q1184426)

The title paper is concerned with the gradient regularizers in rate dependent models. The effect of imperfections and spatial gradient regularization on the response of rate dependent material models is then studied for this particular class of viscoplastic materials. The stability of solutions is examined by a linear perturbation analysis and numerical solution of the nonlinear boundary value problem via the finite element method. Particular emphasis is focused on the relationship between the spatial gradient parameter and the scale of imperfections on the scale of the shear band. Results are explained by graphs. The paper is a nice feature-cum-research article, the long introduction serving as the feature aspects. The paper will be useful to both the applied mathematicians and practising engineers.