An anisotropic phase‐field model at finite strains for composite fracture

Abstract

AbstractPhase‐field modeling has been intensively studied and demonstrated to appropriately capture complex fracture evolutions. Experimental evidence indicates that the fracture evolution is largely relying on the constitutive relations of the engineering materials, e.g. anisotropic properties. In general, anisotropic failure characteristics are governed by the mechanical response and the fracture evolution simultaneously. The work at hand introduces an anisotropic phase‐field modeling for composite material's fracture, which uses only one phase‐field variable to evaluate the fracture status of the matrix and the fiber materials simultaneously. As a result, an equivalent crack surface energy density function is established. Furthermore, the constitutive laws are consistently derived by a straightforward variational principle. Consequently, an interesting numerical example is shown to demonstrate the capabilities of this approach.