New discretization scheme for variational phase-field models of fracture

In a new paper, just accepted for publication in Computational Mechanics, postdoc Frédéric Marazzato (Department of Mathematics, LSU) and I developed a new discretization scheme for variational phase-field models of fracture. The main strength of this approach is that by using discontinous Galerkin finite elements for the displacement and Crouzeix-Raviart elements for the phase-field variable, one achieves a better crack localization along element faces, while keeping a good isotropy of the approximation of the surface energy. A preprint is available on ArXiv.

Update: the article is now online.

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