Cohesive Failure Modeling Based On The Phase-Field Approach

Received: 6 October 2022 Accepted: 10 October 2022
DOI: 10.1002/pamm.202200095
Cohesive failure modeling based on the phase-field approach

Bo Yin1 , Dong Zhao1 , and Michael Kaliske1,∗
1
Institute for Structural Analysis, Technische Universität Dresden, 01062 Dresden, Germany
Regarding resolving the crack-induced strong discontinuity problems, e.g., crack faces separating, contact and friction, the
recent established approach based on the Representative Crack Element (RCE) framework is developed to describe a robust
crack kinematics or crack deformation. The work at hand presents cohesive fracture by elaborating phase-field modeling
within the RCE approach. It constitutes a classical traction-separation exhibition at the crack faces of the RCE. As such, a
phenomenological cohesive adhesion in the RCE can be modeled. In the sequel, the overall material status is interpolated by
an intact material state (continuous description) and a fully broken state (RCE description) using the phase-field degradation
function. This allows not only to model a cohesive debonding failure for tensile and shearing deformation, but also to yield
an expected contact algorithm when the crack is closing. Furthermore, the unknown crack deformations are solved according
to virtual power principle, which provides a consistent framework for the comprehensive constitutive laws of this model.
© 2023 The Authors. Proceedings in Applied Mathematics & Mechanics published by Wiley-VCH GmbH.
1 Introduction
In general, a crack-induced displacement discontinuity problem can be straightforwardly modeled by a discrete crack repre-
sentation within finite element framework. As one of the representative approaches, the cohesive zone model is developed for
adhesion failure simulations by considering a traction-separation law between the cracks surface pairs [1, 2]. The interface
element approach is capable of capturing the crack opening behavior and to prevent interpenetration of the existing crack
surfaces. Nevertheless, it is not capable of predicting an unknown crack propagation in a straightforward manner. In addi-
tion to the cohesive element approach, several cohesive phase-field models are recently developed to describe the softening
behaviors. The established phase-field model describes a smeared and continuous crack approximation, which is originated
from a variational framework by minimizing the total energy [3, 4]. Then, several attempts, e.g., [5, 6] to name a few, are
proposed to obtain a proper material degradation, which are unfortunately not capable of capturing realistic crack deformation
at complex loading conditions. Thereafter, several subsequent developments, namely, the directional decomposition [7, 8] and
Representative Crack Element (RCE) concept [9], are particularly proposed to address this issue. The most challenging and
difficult issue of these models is finding the accurate local crack orientation, which is unfortunately not convincingly solved
so far. Nevertheless, several approximations have been attempted to define this characteristic direction, e.g., the gradient of
the phase-field [7], the maximum principal stress direction [8], and the direction of maximum dissipated fracture energy [10].
With respect to the topics of cohesive phase-field modeling, an early approach [11] straightforwardly constitutes the co-
hesive adhesion failure law at an existing phase-field crack, whose mechanism is similar to the classical interface element
approach. It involves in three distinct fields, namely, the displacement field for deformation, an auxiliary field representing the
displacement jump across the crack, and the phase-field describing the predefined crack path by manipulating the D IRICHLET
boundary condition. Another category of cohesive phase-field modeling [12, 13] is also capable of yielding a phenomenolog-
ical cohesive failure behavior, which does not really take the classical traction-separation constitutive law into consideration.
These models are mainly based on the definition of the phase-field degradation function and the crack surface density function,
which can eventually yield nonlinear softening characteristics with respect to the load-displacement relationship.
This work incorporates the cohesive traction-separation constitutive law within an RCE phase-field framework to simulate
adhesive debonding failure. Similar to the work in [11], a pre-defined or an existing phase-field crack path are considered to
be the cohesive crack. This can be preset by manipulating the D IRICHLET boundary condition for the phase-field degree of
freedom. The phase-field response only needs to be solved once prior to external loading application in order to obtain the
cohesive crack path. Thereafter, the crack deformation, including the cohesive separation, shearing as well as stiff contact, are
accordingly resolved within an RCE constitutive framework. The nature of the RCE framework provides the crack-induced
displacement jump, which largely simplifies the model problem and gets rid of an additional auxiliary field in the continuous
description. The comprehensive formulation is variationally and consistently derived based on the virtual power principle,
and, then, is numerically implemented into the context of the Finite Element Method. For more detailed insights, the reader is
referred to [14, 15].
2 Traction-separation law within Representative Volume Element framework

Two sets of notations are employed in this work, which describes the quantities for the intact continuous deformation using a
standard font and the quantities in the RCE using a Fraktur notation. As one example, the displacement gradient terms with
∗ Corresponding author: michael.kaliske@tu-dresden.de
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use,
distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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2 of 6 Section 3: Damage and fracture mechanics
(a) discrete crack in RCE (b) crack deformation
Fig. 1: Schematic description of crack kinematics of the RCE approach.

respect to the RCE and the continuous descriptions are based on the symbols GX = ∇X u and Gx = ∇x u, respectively.
P3
The illustrative depiction of the RCE deformation is shown in Fig. 1. The crack displacement is uΓ = I=1 uIΓ nI , where the
normal and tangential unit vectors with respect to the crack surface are expressed by n1 and n2,3 , respectively. The dimension
1
of the two identical solid blocks B 1 and B 2 with the volumes V 1 = V 2 = lc3 is governed by the RCE length lc . The
2
area of the crack surface is approximated by A Γ = lc2 . After studying the kinematic coupling of the RCE, one obtains the
relationship of the gradient terms for the continuous and RCE descriptions, reading
3
X
uI I

Gb X = G x − n ⊗ n1 ∀X ∈ B 1 ∪ B 2 . (1)
lc
I=1
Based on the universal definition of small strain tensor for both the continuous material and the RCE blocks, e.g.,
1 T 1 T
ε= G x + G x , and e = Gb X + Gb X , (2)
2 2
respectively, the relationship eventually yields
3
X uI 1 I
e=ε− ΓI P I , where ΓI = and PI = n ⊗ n1 + n1 ⊗ nI . (3)
lc 2
I=1
In this regard, two important aspects, which are the unknown crack orientations nI and the unknown crack deformations
ΓI with I = 1, 2, 3, need to be appropriately determined to further 1 govern the constitutive law of the RCE. The former
one, the
orientation
of the orthogonal local RCE system E Γ
∼ n , n 2
, n3
with respect to the global coordinate system
E e ∼ e1 , e2 , e3 , in this work does not play a very important role, since the phase-field evolution is not considered. Only
a pre-defined phase-field crack path is necessarily taken into account, which means that the crack orientation coordinate
system is also pre-defined. Then, the second issue is to solve the crack deformation by considering cohesive adhesion failure
mechanism in the RCE. In this regard, an established virtual power principle within the RCE framework is employed, which
reads
Z Z Z Z
δP = s : δ ė dV − t · δ u̇Γ dA + T · δ u̇ dA + f · δ u̇ dV = 0.
1 2 Γ (4)
| B ∪B {z } | A ∂V
{z V
}
internal power external power
The internal stress power is defined by considering the stress quantity s in the block materials B 1 ∪ B 2 . The external power
consists of the cohesive traction power at the crack surfaces A Γ , the traction power at the external surface of the RCE domain
∂V , and the volume force power within the RCE volume V . Without considering the RCE surface traction power and the
volume force power quantities, the virtual power principle in Eq. (4) is simplified towards
Z Z
δP = s : δ ė dV − t · δ u̇Γ dA = 0. (5)
B1 ∪B2 AΓ
In particular, the constitutive laws of the RCE blocks and intact continuous materials are based on a linear elastic description
with the model parameters λ and µ, where the stress and tangent are
s = λ tr (e) 1 + 2 µ e, C = λ 1 ⊗ 1 + 2 µ I, and σ 0 = λ tr (ε) 1 + 2 µ ε, C0 = λ 1 ⊗ 1 + 2 µ I. (6)
© 2023 The Authors. Proceedings in Applied Mathematics & Mechanics published by Wiley-VCH GmbH. www.gamm-proceedings.com
PAMM · Proc. Appl. Math. Mech. 22:1 (2022) 3 of 6
The cohesive traction term at the crack surface t is defined based on a classical traction-separation law [16]. The surface
traction and the tangent quantities are
 max

 ϕ u
max 
 2
exp − Γ 1, if umax
Γ > ∥uΓ ∥ ,
ϕ uΓ ∆ ∆
t = − 2 exp − uΓ , and k = max (7)
∆ ∆ 
 ϕ uΓ uΓ ⊗ uΓ

 2 exp − 1 − , if u max
Γ = ∥u Γ ∥ ,
∆ ∆ ∆ umax
Γ
where
v
3 u 3
X uX
= Max ∥uΓ (τ )∥ = Max t
2
uΓ = lc ΓI nI , and umax
Γ (lc ΓI ) . (8)
τ ≤tn+1 τ ≤tn+1
I=1 I=1
The parameter ϕ represents the separation work and ∆ is the characteristic opening length. The maximum traction Tmax
is calculated by Tmax = ϕ/ (exp (1) ∆). This algorithm is proposed to achieve a general damage-like formulation, that
distinguishes between loading and unloading paths.
Substituting all the quantities into the aforementioned virtual power principle Eq. (5), a new equilibrium
Z 3
X Z 3
X
I I I I
δΓ P = −s: δ Γ̇ P dV − t· δ Γ̇ lc n dA = 0 (9)
B1 ∪B2 I=1 AΓ I=1
is obtained and the crack deformation ΓI with I = 1, 2, 3 can be solved by a straightforward minimization method. However,
a robust solution of ΓI may possibly conflict the physical sense, e.g., a negative Γ1 indicates crack surfaces penetration instead
of a stiff contact. Therefore, an additional constraint needs to be imposed to prevent penetrated crack surfaces.
As an initial trial, an opening crack deformation is assumed and the minimization problem leads to
( )

ΓI = arg 1,2,3 min P ε, Γ1 , Γ2 , Γ3 . (10)
Γ ∈R
If for the value Γ1 ≥ 0 is fulfilled, the initial guess of crack opening returns to a trusted prediction. Otherwise, once the
condition Γ1 < 0 is satisfied, the correction process for solving closing crack deformation needs to be triggered. Hence, a
mathematical constraint is imposed to the new equilibrium and the relation in Eq. (9), yielding
( )
2,3 2

3
Γ = arg 2,3 min P ε, Γ , Γ for Γ1 < 0,
Γ ∈R 1 (11)
Γ =0
Γ1 = 0.
From the numerical point of view, the implementation of this constraint condition may lead to oscillations between opening
and closing crack. In this regard, the contact triggered condition is redefined as Γ1 ≤ 10−12 . Furthermore, the equilibrium
is characterized as nonlinear. It shows complexities to obtain the analytical solutions of ΓI , Therefore, an internal N EWTON -
R APHSON algorithm is particularly introduced to solve the minimization problem.
3 Governing Equations of Phase-field Coupling Interpolation

A regularized H ELMHOLTZ potential energy density incorporating phase-field fracture evolution is defined as
Gc 2
φtot = φsolid + d + l2 |∇x d|2 , (12)
2l
where the component φsolid represents the effective material energy density stored in the whole domain with given strain field
and phase-field quantities. The fracture toughness is denoted by Gc . The phase-field variable d(x, t) is an order parameter to
identify the material state, i.e. the sound material is denoted by d = 0 and the fully cracked state is represented by d = 1. The
length scale l is employed to govern the width of the transition zone between fractured and sound state of the material, and
the operator ∇x (∗) represents the spatial gradient operation.
The effective energy density for the solid domain reads

φsolid = φc + g (d) φ0 − φc , (13)
which is interpreted by independent material states, e.g., the intact state φ0 and the fully broken state φc , using the phase-field
2
degradation function g (d) = (1 − d) . As shown in Fig. 2, the material can be distinguished by three main states due to the
www.gamm-proceedings.com © 2023 The Authors. Proceedings in Applied Mathematics & Mechanics published by Wiley-VCH GmbH.
Fig. 2: Phase-field degradation to interpolate the material states using Eq. (13), e.g., point C for intact material (continuous description),
point A for fully broken material (cohesive RCE description), and point B for superposition relationship of intact and RCE descriptions.
nature of the phase-field crack approximation, namely, sound state (d ≈ 0), fully broken state (d = 1), and transition state
(0 < d < 1). Based on the interpretation in Eq. (13), the overall material response is governed by the RCE description in fully
broken state, since d = 1 leads to g(d) = 0 and further to φsolid = φc . With respect to the sound state, the overall material
response is naturally returned to an intact continuous description, since d ≈ 0 leads to g(d) ≈ 1 and further to φsolid ≈ φ0 .
The transition state is a superposition of the intact and the RCE descriptions. The H ELMHOLTZ free energy density functions
for intact and fully broken materials are defined as
Z
1 2 1 1 2
φ0 = λ tr (ε) + µ ε : ε, and φc = λ tr (e) + µ e : e dV , (14)
2 V B1 ∪B2 2
respectively. Thereafter, a variational cohesive phase-field model can be developed and the governing equations of the multi-
field problem are derived straightforwardly according to the balance of energy equilibrium, reading
ρ ü − ∇x · σ solid − b = 0 in Ω and σ solid · n = t at ∂ Ω,

Z Z
s : PI dV + lc t · nI dA = 0 in V with I = 1, 2, 3, (15)
B1 ∪B2 AΓ
Gc
∂d g (d) φ0 − φc + d − l2 ∇x · d = 0 in Ω and ∇x d · n = 0 at ∂ Ω,
l
where the notation ∇x · (∗) represents a divergence operator. The normalized vector n points outwards at the surface of the
solid domain ∂ Ω. This work only considers an existing phase-field crack profile to represent the cohesive path. Therefore,
the phase-field evolution is not included and the phase-field driving force φ0 − φc is not necessary to be discussed.
4 Numerical Simulation
The geometric setup and loading conditions of the two-dimensional boundary value problem are depicted in Fig. 3 (a). The
pre-described phase-field crack path by setting the D IRICHLET boundary d = 1 is horizontally oriented at the middle of the
block. The upper and lower edges of the specimen are completely fixed and a displacement loading is subjected to the upper
boundary. A cyclic tensile and compressive loading is applied, which consists of a loading-unloading-reloading process. The
FE descretization contains 10100 4-node quadratic elements, with an element size he = 1 mm. The L AMÉ parameters applied
are λ = 6.6 MPa and µ = 2 MPa. The phase-field length scale parameter is l = 2 mm. Fig. 3 (b) shows the loading-
displacement result and Figs. (c)-(g) depict the cohesive adhesion failure based on the parameters Tmax = 0.06 MPa and
ϕ = 0.1 N/mm. Furthermore, two governing parameters for the cohesive adhesion behavior are also studied in Figs. (h) and
(i). As a result, it can be seen that Tmax governs the peak value of the resultant load and ϕ governs the total separation work
of debonding failure.
PAMM · Proc. Appl. Math. Mech. 22:1 (2022) 5 of 6
8
linear elasticity
6 phase I
phase II
force [N]
4
phase III
2
0
phase IV
−2
−1 0 1 2 3 4 5 6
displacement [mm]
(a) geometric setup (b) loading-unloading-reloading
(c) u = 0 mm (d) u = 2 mm (e) u = -1 mm (f) u = 2.5 mm (g) u = 5 mm
8 8
Tmax = 0.03 MPa ϕ = 0.10 kN·mm
6 Tmax = 0.05 MPa 6 ϕ = 0.20 kN·mm
force [kN]
force [N]
4 4
2 2
0 0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 0 2 4 6 8
displacement [mm] displacement [mm]
(h) loading function (i) loading function
Fig. 3: (a) Geometric setup and boundary conditions of the model problem, (b) loading-displacement result including loading-unloading-
reloading process, (c)-(g) cohesive failure of the specimen with a deformation scaling factor of 10, (h)-(i) load-displacement relationship
with different Tmax and ϕ.
5 Summary
The work presented incorporates cohesive failure characteristics into a phase-field crack, which is consistently formulated
within the RCE framework. It successfully constitutes a classical traction-separation law [16] regarding the RCE crack opening
and shearing. In the meantime, it also yields a realistic and physical material contact state during crack closing deformation.
In addition to [9, 17–20], which focus on the block material models and thermomechanics, this work emphasizes the crack
face constitutive modeling within the RCE, which is characterized as adhesive debonding failure. Then, this algorithm is
derived and implemented in a straightforward manner based on a two- or three-dimensional boundary value problems. It can
be naturally applied to a line and surface contact model for two and three dimensions, respectively. Furthermore, compared
to [11], this work does not need to introduce an auxiliary field for displacement jumps. Nevertheless, the crack displacement
uΓ in the RCE is strongly governed by the size parameter of the RCE, namely lc . This work does not discuss the parameter,
www.gamm-proceedings.com © 2023 The Authors. Proceedings in Applied Mathematics & Mechanics published by Wiley-VCH GmbH.
but it remains to the future scope as an open topic. Moreover, the present theory does not cover the autonomous phase-field
evolution to simulate the cohesive failure characteristics. Another future challenging perspective is to formulate a simultaneous
evolution of crack propagation and cohesive adhesion failure at evolved crack surfaces.
Acknowledgements The authors would like to gratefully acknowledge the financial support of ANSYS Inc., Canonsburg, U.S.A., and of
the China Scholarship Council (No. 202008080328). Open access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL.
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Cohesive Failure Modeling Based On The Phase-Field Approach

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Received: 6 October 2022 Accepted: 10 October 2022

Cohesive failure modeling based on the phase-field approach

2 Traction-separation law within Representative Volume Element framework

(a) discrete crack in RCE (b) crack deformation

Fig. 1: Schematic description of crack kinematics of the RCE approach.

3 Governing Equations of Phase-field Coupling Interpolation

ρ ü − ∇x · σ solid − b = 0 in Ω and σ solid · n = t at ∂ Ω,

(c) u = 0 mm (d) u = 2 mm (e) u = -1 mm (f) u = 2.5 mm (g) u = 5 mm

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