Adiabatic shear band localization in elastic-plastic damaged solids (Q1205223)

Shear bands are narrow zones of highly nonhomogeneous deformation that take shape by a thermomechanical instability process and accompany the thermomechanical coupling effects and the thermal softening of yielding. The authors investigate the conditions of shear band localization for finite elastic-plastic rate independent deformation of a damaged solid body subjected to an adiabatic process. Thermal softening, hardening effects as well as the micro-damage process are taken into account in the constitutive equations of the thermoelastic-plastic model of damaged solids, which are formulated within the framework of the rate type covariance material structure with internal state variables. An analysis is made on the thermomechanical coupling effects, especially on coupling phenomena generated by the heat resulting from internal dissipation. For adiabatic processes, the general evolution equation for the Kirchhoff stress tensor is obtained and the standard bifurcation method is used to derive criteria for localization along the shear band. The exact analytical form is obtained for the shear band localization by introducing some restrictions on elastic properties and coupling effects. Interesting discussion on the obtained results and some concluding remarks are given in the final part of the paper.