The void-size effect on plastic flow localization in the Gurson model

Recent studies have shown that the size of microvoids has a significant effect on the void growth rate. The purpose of this paper is to explore whether the void size effect can influence the plastic flow localization in ductile materials. We have used the extended Gurson's dilatational plasticity theory, which accounts for the void size effect, to study the plastic flow localization in porous solids with long cylindrical voids. The localization model of Rice is adopted, in which the material inside the band may display a different response from that outside the band at the incipient plastic flow localization. The present study shows that it has little effect on the shear band angle. The project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (10121202) and Ministry of Education, China (20020003023 and Key Grant Project 0306)