Micro-Mechanical Modelling of Void Growth, Damage and Fracture of Nano-Phase Structural Adhesives Using the Finite Volume Method

Significant toughening of structural adhesives is attainable with the addition of nano and/or micro particles1,2,3. A deep understanding of the effect of particle de-bonding and subsequent void growth to coalescence is key to evaluating the strengthening and failure mechanisms occurring in the damage and fracture of these adhesives. Tapered Double Cantilever Beam (TDCB) experiments, conducted at University College Dublin (UCD), have observed a significant dependence of the fracture toughness of these adhesives on bond gap thickness5. In conjunction with this change in fracture toughness, scanning electronmicroscopy (SEM) of the fracture surface has also revealed corresponding changes in void evolution as the bond gap is varied. Classical analysis suggests the change in toughness may be attributed to a physical constraint of the size to which the plastic zone around a crack tip may develop6. However, simulation of these TDCB tests using finite volume stress analysis has found that little plasticity develops in the bulk adhesive layer and is instead concentrated in the fracture process zone. The change in fracture toughness and void evolution present can be attributed to the change in triaxiality at different bond gap thicknesses and the results agree quite well with the void growth model of Rice & Tracey4. The variance of void growth with triaxiality is investigated here. The initial work considered here concerned 3D modelling of a void in an elastic perfectly plastic material with a view to verifying exponential dependence of void growth on the macroscopic stress triaxiality in the system in accordance with the Rice & Tracey model. The model examines void growth rate dependence on the stress triaxiality, for a given effective strain.