Modelling of interfacial crack propagation in strongly heterogeneous materials by using phase field method

Phase field model has been proved to be a useful tool to study the fracture behaviors in heterogeneous materials.
This method is able to model complex, multiple crack fronts, and branching in both 2D/3D without ad-hoc
numerical treatments. In this study, a new interfacial cracking model in the phase field framework is proposed.
The effects of both stiff and soft interphases on the fracture response of composite materials are considered.
A dimensional-reduced model based on a rigorous asymptotic analysis is adapted to derive the null thickness
imperfect interface models from an original configuration containing thin interphase. The idea of mixing the
bulk and interfacial energy within the phase field framework is then used to describe the material degradation
both on the interface and in bulk. Moreover, in order to ensure the physical crack propagation patterns, a
unilateral contact condition is also proposed for the case of spring imperfect interface. The complex cracking
phenomena on interfaces such as initiation, delamination, coalescence, deflection, as well as the competition
between the interface and bulk cracking are successfully predicted by the present method. Concerning the
numerical aspect, the one-pass staggered algorithm is adapted, providing an extremely robust approach to
study interfacial cracking phenomena in a broad class of heterogeneous materials.