Collective behavior and spacing of adiabatic shear bands

The failure of metals subjected to high strain rates is frequently related to the collective development of adiabatic shear bands which results in a patterning depending on the material properties and the loading conditions. In this paper, the spacing between adiabatic shear bands is characterized by analytical means in a one-dimensional formulation. Using a perturbation analysis, a dominant instability mode can be characterized, whose wavelength is related to the shear-band spacing. Explicit solutions are found for materials with no strain hardening. Asymptotic developments are used to obtain results that account for strain hardening. Comparisons are made with experimental results and other existing models. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.