a basic nonlocal plasticity model with a nonlocal cumulative plastic strain in the softening law provides only a partial regularization. As an alternative, a refined nonlocal plasticity model with a combination of local and nonlocal cumulative plastic strain is investigated…
a basic nonlocal plasticity model with a nonlocal cumulative plastic strain in the softening law provides only a partial regularization. As an alternative, a refined nonlocal plasticity model with a combination of local and nonlocal cumulative plastic strain is investigated in detail. An efficient numerical algorithm solving the nonlocal consistency condition is outlined and a convergence proof is given. Furthermore, the behavior of the refined nonlocal model is compared to gradient plasticity with a softening law dependent on the gradient of the softening variable. The differences between plastic strain profiles localized inside the body and at the boundary are investigated and the cotTespondence between the boundary conditions in the gradient formulation and the rescaling of the weight function in the nonlocal formulation is discussed. A physical interpretation of the attractive or repulsive character of the boundary layer is suggested. INTRODUCTION for softening plasticity, the identification of common features and differences as well as their physical inter- Classical plasticity theories based on material models pretation. Regarding a refined nonlocal model, the nu- that are "simple" in the sense of Noll fail to provide merical implementation is also addressed.