On the development of a 3D cohesive zone element in the presence of large deformations

Delamination is typically modelled using cohesive zone models. In this paper, it is shown that the validity of most models is limited to small displacements and/or deformations at the interface and the surrounding bulk materials. A large displacement formulation (LDF) is proposed that overcomes issues of the classical formulation with large displacements and deformations at the interface. Subsequently, a 3D cohesive zone element with this LDF is introduced and its numerical implementation is elaborated. Then, a 3D FEM model is proposed and the determination of several model parameters is substantiated. Finally, the implementation is validated by comparing numerical results with experimental observations.