Modeling of crack propagation on a mesoscopic length scale

Modeling of crack propagation in materials has long been a challenge in solid‐state physics and materials science. The phase‐field method is basically developed for modeling solidification processes and has now established as one of the tools for the description of crack propagation. The applied models are thermodynamically consistent and predict crack propagation in homogeneous materials under the consideration of different loading types, multiple physical fields, geometrical and physical nonlinearities. One of the open challenges is the modeling of crack propagation on a mesoscopic length scale in multiphase or multi‐grain systems. In this work, we summarize our preliminary work to get closer to the goal of describing crack propagation on a mesoscopic length scale. (© 2016 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)