A phase-field model of thermo-elastic coupled brittle fracture with explicit time integration

The phase-field method is a very effective way to simulate arbitrary crack nucleation, propagation, bifurcation, and the formation of complex crack networks. The diffusion-based method is suitable for multi-field coupling fracture problems. In this paper, a parallel algorithm of the thermo-elastic coupled phase-field model is implemented in commercial finite element code Abaqus/Explicit. The algorithm is applied to simulate the dynamic and quasi-static brittle fracture of thermo-elastic materials. Further, it is adopted on a structured mesh combined with first-order explicit integrators. Several examples of the quasi-static and dynamic cases of single crack, as well as multi-crack initiation and propagation under thermal shock, are given to demonstrate the robustness of the algorithm. The source code and tutorials provide an effective way to simulate crack nucleation and propagation in multi-field coupling problems