An enhanced direct method for ductile damage measurement

Damage measurement of materials is a crucial challenge for researchers and engineers in manufacturing industries. In this study, based on the image processing technique, a developed approach for determining the Lemaitre’s ductile damage parameter by the direct measurement method is proposed. For this purpose, first, the micrographs pictures are provided by a scanning electron microscope to attain the damage evolution behavior of St37 steel. Then, prediction results of the suggested method and the Lemaitre’s direct approach as well as the microhardness technique and also a lately published numerical method in damage propagation, crack initiation, and ductile fracture of a few tensile samples are compared with the corresponding experimental tests. The comparison reveals the higher efficiency and accuracy of the current approach. Therefore, it is concluded that the new presented method is a reliable approach to achieve the Lemaitre’s ductile damage parameter and predict the damage evolution behavior of ductile materials.