Goal functional evaluations for phase-field fracture using PU-based DWR mesh adaptivity

Abstract

In this study, a posteriori error estimation and goal-oriented mesh adaptivity are developed for phase-field fracture propagation. Goal functionals are computed with the dual-weighted residual (DWR) method, which is realized by a recently introduced novel localization technique based on a partition-of-unity (PU). This technique is straightforward to apply since the weak residual is used. The influence of neighboring cells is gathered by the PU. Consequently, neither strong residuals nor jumps over element edges are required. Therefore, this approach facilitates the application of the DWR method to coupled (nonlinear) multiphysics problems such as fracture propagation. These developments then allow for a systematic investigation of the discretization error for certain quantities of interest. Specifically, our focus on the relationship between the phase-field regularization and the spatial discretization parameter in terms of goal functional evaluations is novel.