Hello everyone,
After reviewing several papers on ductile fracture modeling, I found two possible approaches to obtain the complete stress–strain curve beyond the necking point in Abaqus:

Approach 1: Define damage evolution at the UTS using displacement at failure, allowing the curve to soften until the final fracture strain. (Mesh-dependent due to characteristic length.)

Approach 2: Use a weighted-average method to extrapolate the stress–strain curve beyond UTS until the final fracture strain, and define damage evolution only to trigger fracture at the final fracture strain point. (Mesh-independentAbaqus ExplicitMaterial Modeling 

I’d like to ask:

1. Which approach is more accurate in representing ductile behavior numerically?
2. Are there alternative approaches for obtaining the post-necking stress–strain response in Abaqus?

Thank you in advance for your insightsfracture