Effective Yield Criterion Accounting for Microvoid Coalescence

An effective yield function is derived for a porous ductile solid near a state of failure by microvoid coalescence. Homogenization theory combined with limit analysis are used to that end. A cylindrical cell is taken to contain a coaxial cylindrical void of finite height. Plastic flow in the intervoid matrix is described by J2 theory while regions above and below the void remain rigid. Velocity boundary conditions are employed which are compatible with an overall uniaxial straining for the cell, a postlocalization kinematics that is ubiquitous during the coalescence of neighboring microvoids in rate-independent solids. Such boundary conditions are not of the uniform strain rate kind, as is the case for Gursonlike models. A similar limit analysis problem for a square-prismatic cell containing a square-prismatic void was posed long ago (Thomason, P. F., 1985, “Three-Dimensional Models for the Plastic Limit–Loads at Incipient Failure of the Intervoid Matrix in Ductile Porous Solids,” Acta Metallurgica, 33, pp. 1079–1085). However, to date a closed-form solution to this problem has been lacking. Instead, an empirical expression of the yield function proposed therein has been widely used in the literature. The fully analytical expression derived here is intended to be used concurrently with a Gursonlike yield function in numerical simulations of ductile fracture.