I submit for consideration the manuscript entitled “Finite-range cohesion and finite fracture increments in viscoelastic contact: a generalized-work formulation and two-dimensional benchmarks.”
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/417487880
The work develops a generalized virtual-work formulation for steady adhesive viscoelastic contact that retains the nonconservative contribution from the skew-adjoint inverse surface response while introducing a finite-range Lennard–Jones interaction. It establishes the equivalence of the resulting weak equation and the cohesive traction equation under the same kernel and loading assumptions.
A second contribution clarifies the relation to quantized fracture mechanics, finite fracture mechanics and critical-distance methods. The paper derives an exact elastic finite-increment energy average and shows why a finite fracture increment cannot be identified automatically with the cohesive interaction range or numerical mesh. Four two-dimensional numerical benchmarks provide an independent implementation check.
I believe the manuscript fits XXXX because its central contribution concerns variational structure, dissipation, cohesive-zone regularization and the mechanics of finite fracture increments. The scope and limitations of the equivalence are explicitly stated; in particular, no universal finite-area crack-front rule or three-dimensional numerical validation is claimed.