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Sheet metal cutting is widely used in industry and the numerical modeling ofsuch a process can be very helpful in order to improve the quality of the final product aswell as the productivity of the process. During sheet metal cutting, the material undergoeselastic and plastic deformation with high shearing, damage and fracture. We propose hereto focus on the two most critical stages of the process: damage and fracture. To do so, a 2Dfinite element software dealing with large deformation of elastic-plastic materials ispresented. A coupled damage model, based on the Lemaître theory, is used to model theevolution of damage. Numerical tools have also been developed to model the stages ofcrack initiation and crack propagation up to fragment creation. Special attention will bepaid to the computation of the crack extension direction and to the mesh structure at thecrack tip. The aim of these techniques is to model the complete separation between the finalpart and the skeleton, and to study the tool wear due to the punch raising.