Virtual element formulation for isotropic damage

In the paper we present a low-order virtual element formulation for modelling the strain-softening response of quasi-brittle materials. For this purpose, a formulation in two-dimensions is considered, with virtual elements having arbitrary shape. The method is based on minimization of an incremental energy expression, with a novel construction of the stabilization energy for isotropic elasto-damage. A set of numerical examples, illustrating the efficiency of the proposed method, complements the paper.