Multiscale cohesive failure modeling of heterogeneous adhesives

A novel multiscale cohesive approach that enables prediction of the macroscopic properties of heterogeneous thin layers is presented. The proposed multiscale model relies on the Hill's energy equivalence lemma, implemented in the computational homogenization scheme, to couple the micro- and macro-scales and allows to relate the homogenized cohesive law used to model the failure of the adhesive layer at the macro-scale to the complex damage evolution taking place at the micro-scale. A simple isotropic damage model is used to describe the failure processes at the micro-scale. We establish the upper and lower bounds on the multiscale model and solve several examples to demonstrate the ability of the method to extract physically based macroscopic properties. (c) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.