Modeling fracture by material-point erosion

The present work is concerned with the verification and validation of an implementation of the eigenfracture scheme of Schmidt et al. (SIAM J Multiscale Model Simul 7:1237–1266, 2009) based on material-point erosion, which we refer to as eigenerosion. Eigenerosion is derived from the general eigenfracture scheme by restricting the eigendeformations in a binary sense: they can be either zero, in which case the local behavior is elastic; or they can be equal to the local displacement gradient, in which case the corresponding material neighborhood is failed, or eroded. When combined with a material-point spatial discretization, this scheme gives rise to material-point erosion, i. e., each material point can be either intact, in which case its behavior is elastic, or be completely failed—or eroded—and has no load bearing capacity. We verify the eigenerosion scheme through convergence studies for mode I fracture propagation in three-dimensional problems. By way of validation we apply the eigenerosion scheme to the simulation of combined torsiontraction experiments in aluminum-oxide bars. A. Pandolfi (B) Dipartimento di Ingegneria Strutturale, Politecnico di Milano, Piazza Leonardo da Vinci 32, 20133 Milano, Italy e-mail: [email protected] B. Li · M. Ortiz Graduate Aeronautical Laboratories, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA e-mail: [email protected] M. Ortiz e-mail: [email protected]