Phase Field Modeling of Ductile Fracture in Soil Mechanics

This work outlines a rigorous framework for the ductile failure of frictional materials in elastic‐plastic soil mechanics undergoing large strains. Describing soil crack formation can be achieved in a convenient way by recently developed continuum phase field approaches to fracture, which are based on the regularization of sharp crack discontinuities [1]. This avoids the use of complex discretization methods for crack discontinuities, and can account for complex crack patterns. For frictional materials, a non–associative Drucker–Prager‐type elastic‐plastic constitutive model suitable for a wide range of applications in soil mechanics is developed. It is linked to a failure criterion in terms of the elastic‐plastic work density that drives the fracture phase field. We demonstrate the modeling capabilities and algorithmic performance of the proposed formulation by a representative numerical example that describes soil crack formation using elastic‐plastic fracture mechanics. (© 2017 Wiley‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)