Shell and Solid-Shell Finite Element Models for the Simulation of Blade Cutting of Thin Sheets

The finite element simulation of cutting of a thin shell by a sharp blade is considered. Among the various sources of difficulty one can list contact, crack propagation, large displacements, material nonlinearities, possible delamination. When cohesive interface elements are used to describe crack propagation, an additional difficulty is represented by the blade sharpness. A new type of "directional" cohesive element, to be used in conjunction with solid-shell elements, is proposed and discussed for the simulation of this type of problems.