Computational modeling of quasi static fracture using the nonlocal operator method and explicit phase field model

In this paper, a nonlocal operator method combined with an explicit phase field method is applied to model the propagation of quasi-static fracture and show the computational efficiency of the proposed model compared with numerical models based on implicit method in the literature. Based on the energy form of the phase field model, the nonlocal strong form of governing equations are derived. In the implementation, both the mechanical field and phase field are updated with an explicit time integration. Several numerical benchmark problems including L-shape panel, Three-point bending, Notched plate with holes are carried out and compared with other methods, which show good agreement with previous works. Furthermore, a hybrid implicit/explicit model is proposed to improve the computational efficiency of the explicit model. This paper also presents a local damping, which decreases the ratio of kinetic energy to internal energy of the explicit phase field model to apply mass scaling method. The mass scaling for the cases studied here is examined and the computational time is saved.