A novel Volume-Compensated Particle method for 2D elasticity and plasticity analysis

A novel Volume-Compensated Particle model (VCPM) is proposed for the modeling of deformation and fracture in solids. In this proposed method, two potentials are introduced to model the interactions between material particles, i.e., a local pair-wise potential and a non-local multi-body potential. The local pair-wise potential is utilized to account for the constitutive relationship within the connecting bonds between particles while the non-local multi-body potential is employed for considering the volumetric effects under general mechanical loadings. The potential coefficients are determined by matching the potential energy stored in a discrete unit cell to the strain energy at the classical continuum level. A volume conservation scheme is proposed to model the plastic deformation. The validity of the proposed model is tested against the classical elasticity and elasto-plasticity benchmarks before its application to fracture problems. Several conclusions are drawn based on the proposed study. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.