An alternative finite strain elastoplastic model applied to soft core sandwich panels simulation

Abstract An alternative elastoplastic model based on the Flory’s right Cauchy-Green stretch tensor decomposition is proposed and applied to model soft cores of sandwich panels. It does not follow usual methodologies as the additive decomposition or the Kröner-Lee multiplicative decomposition of strains. It is based on an important hyperelastic relation, Flory’s decomposition, from which the total strain is separated in two isochoric and one volumetric parts. Using this decomposition, the volumetric strain energy continues to be elastic during all elastoplastic analysis and the isochoric parts are managed to produce the plastic evolution. As a consequence of Flory’s decomposition, the plastic flow direction is known and independent of the yielding surfaces. Moreover, it provides the well known deviatoric nature of plastic strains. For validation purposes, the resulting formulation is implemented using a special 3D prismatic element in a geometrical nonlinear positional FEM computational code. The achieved numerical results are compared with literature experimental data of soft core laminated structural elements.