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The concept of representative crack elements for phase‐field fracture: Anisotropic elasticity and thermo‐elasticity
Author(s) -
Storm J.,
Supriatna D.,
Kaliske M.
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
international journal for numerical methods in engineering
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.421
H-Index - 168
eISSN - 1097-0207
pISSN - 0029-5981
DOI - 10.1002/nme.6244
Subject(s) - elasticity (physics) , isotropy , anisotropy , materials science , fracture mechanics , mechanics , mathematical analysis , mathematics , physics , composite material , optics
Summary The realistic representation of material degradation at a fully evolved crack is still one of the main challenges of the phase‐field method for fracture. An approach with realistic degradation behavior is only available for isotropic elasticity in the small deformation framework. In this paper, a variational framework is presented for the standard phase‐field formulation, which allows to derive the kinematically consistent material degradation. For this purpose, the concept of representative crack elements (RCE) is introduced to analyze the fully degraded material state. The realistic material degradation is further tested using the self‐consistency condition , where the behavior of the phase‐field model is compared to a discrete crack model. The framework is applied to isotropic elasticity, anisotropic elasticity and thermo‐elasticity, but not restricted to these constitutive formulations.