An investigation on the evolution of strain localization zone in metallic materials based on tensile tests and a 1-D nonlocal model

Metallic materials exhibit pronounced strain localization during damage and failure, posing a challenge in damage mechanics when predicting the change in the size of the strain localization zone. In this study, uniaxial tensile tests were carried out to observe changes in the size of the strain localization zone during the loading of aluminum and low-carbon steel. The initial and final states of the two metallic materials during deformation localization were compared. The strain localization zone shrank gradually with the increase in the load, which agrees with existing electronic speckle pattern interferometry (ESPI) results. This experimental phenomenon was further analyzed theoretically. By establishing the relationship between the material characteristic length and the damage, the variation of the material characteristic length was revealed, and the form of the nonlocal kernel function with a varying characteristic length was determined. The results demonstrated that within the framework of nonlocal damage theory, the nonlocal kernel function with a varying characteristic length can be used to satisfactorily simulate the gradual shrinkage of the strain localization zone of metallic materials with the damage evolution. Therefore, this study provides an effective theoretical tool for predicting the size of the strain localization zone.