Simulating Brittle Fracture with Material Points

Abstract

Large-scale topological changes play a key role in capturing the fine debris of fracturing virtual brittle material. Real-world, tough brittle fractures have dynamic branching behaviour but numerical simulation of this phenomena is notoriously challenging. In order to robustly capture these visual characteristics, we simulate brittle fracture by combining elastodynamic continuum mechanical models with rigid-body methods: A continuum damage mechanics (CDM) problem is solved, following rigid-body impact, to simulate crack propagation by tracking a damage field. We combine the result of this elastostatic continuum model with a novel technique to approximate cracks as a non-manifold mid-surface, which enables accurate and robust modelling of material fragment volumes to compliment fast-and-rigid shatter effects. For enhanced realism, we add fracture detail, incorporating particle damage-time to inform localised perturbation of the crack surface with artistic control. We evaluate our method with numerous examples and comparisons, showing that it produces a breadth of brittle material fracture effects and with low simulation resolution to require much less time compared to fully elastodynamic simulations.