Softening Laws

Introduction

Softening laws are used in softening materials to determine crack tractions as a function of effective crack opening displacements. Each law defines a normalized function that decays from 1 to 0 when the crack opening displacement increases from 0 to δ_max. The area under the law (times an associated stress) gives the fracture toughness associated with that law. These laws also control the evolution of one damage parameter. Various softening materials will need two or more softening laws to model all possible types of damage.

These laws are currently only available in OSParticulas.

Define a Damage Initiation Laws

You create a softening law using an "Softening" material property within a Material command block. You pick the law by name or ID. After picking the law, all its properties are set using property commands with the same material definition. Refer to each softening law type to learn about its softening function and about its reqjuired properties.

Softening Laws

This table lists the available softening laws. Click each one for more details and information on their properties.

Name	ID	Description
Linear	1	Linear softening law.

It is relatively easy to write code for new damage initiation laws, if needed.