A coupled thermo-mechanical model for simulating the material failure evolution due to localized heating

A coupled thermo-mechanical constitutive model with decohesion is proposed to simulate the material failure evolution due to localized heating. A discontinuous bifurcation analysis is performed based on a thermoviscoplasticity relation to identify the transition from continuous to discontinuous failure modes as well as the orientation of the discontinuous failure. The thermo-mechanical model is then implemented within the framework of the Material Point Method (MPM) so that the different gradient and divergence operators in the governing differential equations could be discretized in a single computational domain and that continuous remeshing is not required with the evolution of failure. The proposed model-based simulation procedure is verified with analytical solutions available, and the potential of the proposed procedure is demonstrated by simulating the material failure evolution in a prestressed plate subject to laser irradiation.