On the Construction of Explicit Analytical Driving Forces for Crack Nucleation in the Phase Field Approach to Brittle Fracture With Application to Mohr–Coulomb and Drucker–Prager Strength Surfaces

Abstract A series of recent papers have modified the classical variational phase field fracture models to successfully predict both the nucleation and propagation of cracks in brittle fracture under general loading conditions. This is done through the introduction of a consistent crack nucleation driving force in the phase field governing equations, which results in the model being able to capture both the strength surface and fracture toughness of the material. This driving force has been presented in the literature for the case of Drucker–Prager strength surface and specific choice of stress states on the strength surface that are captured exactly for finite values of the phase field regularization length ε. Here, we present an explicit analytical expression for this driving force given a general material strength surface when the functional form of the strength locus is linear in the material parameter coefficients. In the limit ε→0, the formulation reproduces the exact material strength surface and for finite ε the strength surface is captured at any n ‘distinct’ points on the strength surface where n is the minimum number of material coefficients required to describe it. The presentation of the driving force in the current work facilitates the easy demonstration of its consistent nature. Furthermore, in the equation governing crack nucleation, the toughness in the classical models is shown to be replaced by an effective toughness in the modified theory that is dependent on the stress. The derived analytical expressions are verified via application to the widely employed Mohr–Coulomb and Drucker–Prager strength surfaces.