Phase-field modelling of brittle fracture in thin shell elements based on the MITC4+ approach

Pillai, Udit; Triantafyllou, Savvas P.; Ashcroft, Ian; Essa, Yasser; de la Escalera, Federico Martin

Abstract

We present a phase field based MITC4+ shell element formulation to simulate fracture propagation in thin shell structures. The employed MITC4+ approach renders the element shear- and membrane- locking free, hence providing high-fidelity fracture simulations in planar and curved topologies. To capture the mechanical response under bending-dominated fracture, a crack-driving force description based on the maximum strain energy density through the shell-thickness is considered. Several numerical examples simulating fracture in flat and curved shell structures are presented, and the accuracy of the proposed formulation is examined by comparing the predicted critical fracture loads against analytical estimates.

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Feb 13, 2020
• Online Publication Date: Mar 20, 2020
• Publication Date: 2020
• Deposit Date: Mar 25, 2020
• Publicly Available Date: Mar 21, 2021
• Journal: Computational Mechanics
• Print ISSN: 0178-7675
• Electronic ISSN: 1432-0924
• Publisher: Springer Verlag
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 65
• Pages: 1413–1432
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00466-020-01827-z
• Keywords: Mindlin shell elements, Shear and membrane locking, MITC4+ formulations, Phase-field implementation, Brittle fracture
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/4194395
• Publisher URL: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00466-020-01827-z
• Additional Information: This is a post-peer-review, pre-copyedit version of an article published in Computational Mechanics. The final authenticated version is available online at: https://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00466-020-01827-z