A phase-field model for ductile fracture at finite strains and its experimental verification

In this paper, a phase-field model for ductile fracture previously proposed in the kinematically linear regime is extended to the three-dimensional finite strain setting, and its predictions are qualitatively and quantitatively compared with several experimental results, both from ad-hoc tests carried out by the authors and from the available literature. The proposed model is based on the physical assumption that fracture occurs when a scalar measure of the accumulated plastic strain reaches a critical value, and such assumption is introduced through the dependency of the phase-field degradation function on this scalar measure. The proposed model is able to capture the experimentally observed sequence of elasto-plastic deformation, necking and fracture phenomena in flat specimens; the occurrence of cup-and-cone fracture patterns in axisymmetric specimens; the role played by notches and by their size on the measured displacement at fracture; and the sequence of distinct cracking events observed in more complex specimens.