Phase-field modeling of ductile fracture

Phase-field modeling of brittle fracture in elastic solids is a well-established framework that overcomes the limitations of the classical Griffith theory in the prediction of crack nucleation and in the identification of complicated crack paths including branching and merging. We propose a novel phase-field model for ductile fracture of elasto-plastic solids in the quasi-static kinematically linear regime. The formulation is shown to capture the entire range of behavior of a ductile material exhibiting J(2)-plasticity, encompassing plasticization, crack initiation, propagation and failure. Several examples demonstrate the ability of the model to reproduce some important phenomenological features of ductile fracture as reported in the experimental literature.