Numerical Modelling of Fracture Processes at the Microstructural level of Heterogeneous Materials

Sa？etak The prediction of a crack propagation at the microstructural level of heterogeneous material, as is the case with the nodular cast iron, can be a very demanding problem. Lately, the phase-field approach to fracture has been shown a strong potential in modelling such complex crack behaviour in a smeared-crack manner. In this work, the phase-field staggered residual norm based stopping criterion, recently developed by the authors, has been utilized for the numerical simulation of the crack propagation within the heterogeneous microstructural geometry. The geometries have been based on the metallographic images of the nodular cast iron with the graphite nodules considered as porosities. The proposed solution strategy is able to recover the complicated crack nucleation and propagation phenomena within the complex microstructural topology