An interface damage model accounting for in-plane effects

The present work deals with the formulation of a kinematic enriched model for cohesive interface. In fact, the interface kinematics is defined by the relative displacement occurring between the two surfaces of the interface and, even, by the strain arising in the plane of the interface. A damage model which accounts for the mode I and mode II and for the axial deformation of the interface is proposed starting from the Drucker–Prager failure criterion. A numerical procedure is developed implementing the proposed interface model into a new finite element. The nonlinear evolutive problem is solved adopting a predictor–corrector technique within the backward time integration scheme. Simple numerical simulations are presented in order to assess the features of the model. Moreover, numerical applications are carried out in order to demonstrate the ability of the proposed model in reproducing the mechanical behavior of the cohesive elements strengthened with external FRP reinforcements. Comparisons between available experimental data and numerical results obtained using the proposed model show the effectiveness of the presented formulation.