Our work on crack nucleation in variational phase-field models is available (Tanné et al., 2018). We study gradient-damage models can be used as phase-field model of brittle fracture. We show that they correctly account for crack nucleation when appropriately setting the internal length. Several validation and verification numerical experiments are provided.

Codes used in this paper can be found here: https://bitbucket.org/cmaurini/gradient-damage

  1. Tanné, E., Li, T., Bourdin, B., Marigo, J.-J., & Maurini, C. (2018). Crack nucleation in variational phase-field models of brittle fracture. Journal of the Mechanics and Physics of Solids, 110(Supplement C), 80–99. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmps.2017.09.006 [Publisher] [Pdf]