Nonlocal modeling in high-velocity impact failure of 6061-T6 aluminum

•The present study establishes the relevance of the nonlocal concept to deal with high rate damage phenomena.•Process of calibrating nonlocal characteristic length scale using a series of tensile notch specimen tests.•Numerical result shows that the addition of a length scale to the model does eliminate the pathological mesh dependency.•In addition the numerical predictions of the new model are in good agreement with experimental data.