Numerical and Experimental Study of Strain Localization in Notched Specimens of a Ductile Steel on Meso‐ and Macroscales

The computational approach for modeling the deformation behavior and fracture of materials with stress concentrators is proposed on the basis of the cellular automata technique. Numerical simulations performed on miniaturized specimens under dynamic loading are accompanied by laboratory tensile testing under quasi‐static conditions applied to the specimens of a ductile structural steel with three typical notch shapes. Using in situ acoustic emission paired with digital image correlation techniques, it is shown that the notch shape exerts a very strong influence on the development of localized plastic flow and crack initiation ahead of the notch tip. It is concluded that the stress release occurs most effectively when the modulation of various components of the force moment takes place on mesoscopic scale.