Three-Dimensional Phase-Field FEM Modelling for Fracture

Resumo

The study of crack growth is very important in Structural Engineering to prevent catastrophic collapses.
This task becomes easier through developing software to model and to study the crack propagation, the crack path
and the prediction of where these pathologies will emerge in a solid. A promising approach, which lately has been
largely used, is the Phase-Field modelling, that transforms the sharp crack of Griffith’s criterion into a smoothed
crack that spreads on a certain region of the domain. Our research group, located in the Structural Engineering
Department (DEES) of the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG), has been studying the Phase-Field
modelling since 2019. The computational implementations have been done in INSANE (INteractive Structural
ANalysis Environment), an object-oriented software developed by DEES. The two-dimensional modelling of
Phase-Field was previously implemented by Leão [1] in which has been proven the benefits of that approach in
the study of crack propagation. This paper presents the expansion of Phase-Field FEM models for the 3D version,
where it is possible to evaluate the cracks in solids. Preliminary results using 3D modelling are compared with
those published in the literature.