Abstract
Shear bands are narrow zones of intense shear observed during plastic deformations of metals at high strain rates. Because they often precede rupture, their study attracted attention as a mechanism of material failure. Here, we aim to reveal the onset of localization into shear bands using a simple model from viscoplasticity. We exploit the properties of scale invariance of the model to construct a family of self-similar focusing solutions that capture the nonlinear mechanism of shear band formation. The key step is to desingularize a reduced system of singular ordinary differential equations and reduce the problem into the construction of a heteroclinic orbit for an autonomous system of three first order equations. The associated dynamical system has fast and slow time scales, forming a singularly perturbed problem. Geometric singular perturbation theory is applied to this problem to achieve an invariant surface. The flow on the invariant surface is analyzed via the Poincare Bendixson theorem to construct a heteroclinic orbit.