A phase-field model for thermo-mechanical fracture with an open-source implementation of it using Gridap in Julia

TL;DR

This paper introduces a thermodynamically consistent phase-field model for thermo-mechanical fracture, with an open-source Julia implementation using Gridap, validated through standard fracture tests and extending previous isothermal models.

Contribution

It presents a novel thermodynamically consistent phase-field model for thermo-mechanical fracture with an open-source, flexible Julia implementation using Gridap.

Findings

Validated against standard fracture problems

Provides low-memory, flexible implementation

Extends isothermal phase-field models to non-isothermal cases

Abstract

In this article, we propose a thermodynamically consistent phase-field model for thermo-mechanical fracture and provide an open-source implementation of the proposed model using a recently developed finite element toolbox, Gridap in Julia. Here, we have derived the balance equations for the thermo-mechanical fracture by invoking the virtual power principle and determined the constitutive relations for the thermodynamic fluxes based on the satisfaction of the thermodynamic laws. Our proposed formulation provides an equation of temperature evolution that can easily accommodate dissipative effects such as viscous damping. One may consider the proposed model as a non-trivial extension of a recently developed iso-thermal phase-field model by Dhas {\it{et al.}} \cite{dhas2018phase} for the non-isothermal case. We provide very compact and user-friendly open-source codes for implementing the proposed model using Gridap in Julia that requires very low memory usage and gives a high degree of flexibility to the users in defining weak forms of the governing partial differential equations. We have validated the proposed model and its implementation against such standard results available in the literature as crack propagation in the cruciform shape material, single edge-notched plate, bi-material beam and a quenching test.