Anisotropic unilateral damage with initial orthotropy: A micromechanics-based approach

A micromechanics-based damage model able to describe the brittle response of initially anisotropic materials is presented. A special emphasis is put on the account of damage-induced anisotropy and unilateral behaviour related to microcracks closure effects. These both features clearly influence the inelastic deformation of microcracked materials and lead to even more complex consequences in the context of initial anisotropy. The aim of this work is then to derive a new strain-based formulation which allows representing the related interactions between all these phenomena. This is achieved through a recent two-dimensional energy-based micromechanical analysis that accounts for the fully anisotropic multilinear response of orthotropic materials weakened by arbitrarily oriented microcracks. On the other hand, the thermodynamics framework gives a standard procedure for the development of the damage evolution law. Throughout the paper, attention is put on the mathematical and thermodynamical consistency of the model to avoid difficulties usually associated to the simultaneous description of damage-induced anisotropy and unilateral effects. In addition to elastic constants, the model requires the identification of only two parameters related to damage evolution. The model has been implemented within the commercial finite-element code ABAQUS, and various numerical simulations are presented to illustrate its capabilities. Especially, evolution of the material symmetry and influence of opening-closure states of microcracks on the damage process are illustrated in the case of brittle matrix composites subjected to different loading cases (axis and off-axis loads, tension and compression, tension followed by compression).