A Monolithic Solution Scheme for a Phase Field Model of Ductile Fracture

A phase field model for elastic-plastic fracture is presented, which is based on an energy functional composed of an elastic energy contribution, a plastic dissipation potential and a fracture energy. The coupling of the mechanical fields with the fracture field is modeled by a degradation function. Due to the proposed coupling it is possible to solve the global system of differential equations in a monolithic iterative solution scheme. Numerical simulations are presented, where the choice of the degradation function is investigated and a staggered is compared to monolithic iteration scheme. (© 2017 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim