Investigating strain rate effects on elastoplastic fracture using a variable material properties-based peridynamic model

• The VMPB-PD method integrates VMP and BB-PD to model elastoplastic fracture under various strain rates. • Higher strain rates reduce plastic strain at crack tips, altering crack propagation paths and intensifying stress distributions. • The model predicts stress-strain responses and crack growth in soft materials with a maximum error of 8 %. • The JC model enables analysis of strain rate-dependent ductile fracture, showing increased yield strength at higher rates. This study addresses a significant limitation in bond-based peridynamic (BB-PD) models, which have traditionally struggled to predict failure in ductile materials. The research introduces a novel approach to enhance the capabilities of BB-PD by incorporating the Variable Material Property (VMP) method, enabling accurate modeling of elastoplastic behavior. By integrating the Johnson–Cook material model, which accounts for strain rate dependency, the proposed Variable Material Properties-Based Peridynamic (VMPB-PD) method effectively characterizes elastoplastic deformations. Numerical results, validated against experimental data from the literature, demonstrate the accuracy of the model, with a maximum prediction error of 8 %. This new method shows strong agreement with experimental findings, providing a significant improvement in simulating fracture behavior under varying loading rates.