Bending of an elastoplastic Hencky bar-chain: from discrete to nonlocal continuous beam models

The static behavior of an elastoplastic one-dimensional lattice system in bending, also called a microstructured elastoplastic beam or elastoplastic Hencky bar-chain (HBC) system, is investigated. The lattice beam is loaded by concentrated or distributed transverse monotonic forces up to the complete collapse. The phenomenon of softening localization is also included. The lattice system is composed of piecewise linear hardening–softening elastoplastic hinges connected via rigid elements. This physical system can be viewed as the generalization of the elastic HBC model to the nonlinear elastoplasticity range. This lattice problem is demonstrated to be equivalent to the finite difference formulation of a continuous elastoplastic beam in bending. Solutions to the lattice problem may be obtained from the resolution of piecewise linear difference equations. A continuous nonlocal elastoplastic theory is then built from the lattice difference equations using a continualization process. The new nonlocal elastoplastic theory associated with both a distributed nonlocal elastoplastic law coupled to a cohesive elastoplastic model depends on length scales calibrated from the spacing of the lattice model. Differential equations of the nonlocal engineering model are solved for the structural configurations investigated in the lattice problem. It is shown that the new micromechanics-based nonlocal elastoplastic beam model efficiently captures the scale effects of the elastoplastic lattice model, used as the reference. The hardening–softening localization process of the nonlocal continuous model strongly depends on the lattice spacing which controls the size of the nonlocal length scales.