Conceptual

Anisotropic Phase-Field Fracture Modeling under Compression in Geomaterials

An extension of phase-field fracture modeling to strongly anisotropic rock that fractures under compressive, confined loading. Students learn how a homogenized anisotropic elastic response, an effective damage law that transmits compressive traction across the crack face, and a regularized crack-normal field together let a diffuse damage field reproduce realistic crack paths in layered shales, and how treating a pre-existing crack as a non-singular damaged zone enables general wing-crack simulations without meshing the crack as a boundary.