Issue 12

S. Marfia et alii, Frattura ed Integrità Strutturale, 12 (2010) 13-20 ; DOI: 10.3221/IGF-ESIS.12.02 19 (21) where the superscript c indicates that the evaluated damage accounts for the coupling between the interface and the body damages. The following remarks can be emphasized: o if the body 1  is damaged, implicitly the interface is even damaged; in other words, the damage state of the interface depends on the state of degradation of the body. o if the body 1  is not damaged, the interface damage is governed by the variable D  , i.e. on the relative displacement occurring on the interface. In order to perform a first and simple assessment of the proposed model, the problem proposed in previous section, as a possible delamination test, is considered again, but accounting for the coupling damage given i n Eq. (21) . The damage of the body indeed is equivalent to the reduction of the initial properties of the interface. Figure 4 : Decohesion force max F versus adhesion length, coupled damage model. In Fig. 4, the value of max F is plotted versus the adhesion length. When the coupling between the interface and body damage is accounted for, the following observations can be remarked: o as in the case of the uncoupled model, increasing the adhesion length  the value of max F grows, until the optimal adhesion length e  is reached, after which max F remains constant; o as in the case of the uncoupled model, for higher values of the damage state of the body 1  the optimal adhesion length increases; o for higher values of the damage state of the body 1  the maximum value of max F decreases. This last results appears much more reliable with respect to the one obtained adopting the uncoupled damage model. C ONCLUSIONS n conclusion, a coupled interface-body nonlocal damage model is proposed. The presented application consider a very simple structural scheme, subjected to elementary loading and damage histories. Although the simplicity of the scheme and the damage evolution of the considered application, it is remarked the necessity of the use of the coupled damage model for the analysis of the reinforced concrete or masonry structural elements. The research will continue implementing the proposed model in a finite element code in order to develop an effective tool for the strengthening design and to investigate on mode complex structural applications. 0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450 0 50 100 150 200 250 300 adhesion length [mm] F max [N] D  =D I =0.00 D  =D I =0.90 D  =D I =0.95 D  =D I =0.99 I         max , c D D D        x x x