The adaptive coupling of dual-horizon peridynamic element and finite element for the progressive failure of materials

The peridynamic correspondence model (PDCM) provides the stress–strain relation that can introduce many classical constitutive models, however, the high computational consumption and zero-energy mode of PDCM certainly limit its further application to practical engineering crack problems. To solve these limitations and exploit the advantage of PDCM, we propose a simple and effective method that adaptively couples dual-horizon peridynamic element (DH-PDE) with finite element (FE) to simulate the quasi-static fracture problems. To this end, a stabilized dual-horizon peridynamic element for DH-PDCM is firstly developed that the peridynamic strain matrices for the bond and material point are constructed respectively. The nonlocal ordinary and correctional peridynamic element stiffness matrices are derived in detail and calculated by the proposed dual-assembly algorithm. Subsequently, a unified variational weak form of this adaptive coupling of DH-PDE and FE is proposed based on the convergence of peridynamics to the classical model in the limit of vanishing horizon. Therefore, the integrals of the peridynamic element and finite element in this coupling method are completely decoupled in the viewpoint of numerical implementation, which makes it easier to realize the proposed adaptive coupling by switching integral element. Moreover, the proposed adaptive coupling is implemented in Abaqus/UEL to optimize the calculational efficiency and real-time visualization of calculated results, which has potential for dealing with the engineering crack problems. Two-dimensional numerical examples involving mode-I and mixed-mode crack problems are used to demonstrate the effectiveness of this adaptive coupling in addressing the quasi-static fracture of cohesive materials.