Analysis of the strain field in the vicinity of a crack-tip in an in-plane isotropic paper material

Strains, computed by the finite element method, are evaluated and compared to an experimentally determined strain field. The analyzed low-density paper has been designed to ensure bond–breakage as the dominating damage mechanism and the paper material is approximately in-plane isotropic. An optical non-contact displacement measuring system has been used in fracture tests to determine the strain field in the crack-tip region of a pre-fabricated crack. Additionally, acoustic emission monitored tensile tests have been conducted to determine onset and evolution of damage processes and thereby enabling calibration of required constitutive parameters. The results suggest that the investigated paper material can tolerate significantly higher strains than what is predicted by a classic elastic–plastic J₂-flow theory. Immediately before onset of the final fracture (i.e., localization), the experimental measured normal strain in the near-tip region is around 60% higher than the computed strain when using exclusively an elastic–plastic theory for the corresponding load while the strain computed utilizing a non-local damage theory is of the same order of magnitude as the experimentally measured strain. Hence, it seems essential to include a non-local continuum theory to describe strains in the near-tip region quantitatively correct for paper materials. It is demonstrated that path independence of the well-known J-integral does not prevail for this class of material models. Only for the special situation of a homogenous damage field in the crack-tip region may the stress and strain fields be described by the well-known HRR-solutions.