A phase-field model for hydrogen-assisted fracture in elastic-plastic solids

SEBASTIAN TORO; FERNANDO PEREIRA DUDA; ALFREDO E. HUESPE; ÁNGEL CIARBONETTI

Nantes

Conferencia; CFRAC 2017 International Conference on Computational Fracture and Failure of Materials and Structures; 2017

Ecole Centrale of Nantes and GeM Institute (joint CNRS lab with University of Nantes) under the umbrella of ECCOMAS and CSMA

This paper deals with the formulation and numerical implementation of a coupled continuum theory for the interaction of elastoplastic deformation, hydrogen diffusion and fracture in solids. The theory is developed within the framework of continuum mechanics and relies on recently developed strategies for incorporating an additional phase field to embody fracture (Duda, F.P., Ciarbonetti, A., Sánchez, P.J., Huespe, A.E. ?A phase-field/gradient damage model for brittle fracture in elastic?plastic solids?, International Journal of Plasticity, vol. 65, (2015), 269?296).A specialization of the theory is presented to model hydrogen-enhanced decohesion in metals and the corresponding numerical implementation based on the finite-element method for spatial discretization and an implicit Euler scheme for time-stepping. To illustrate its potential utility, we apply the model to investigate the problem of environmentally-assisted crack propagation in a center-cracked panel under tensile loading. The results are compared with the ones obtained in Serebrinsky, S., E. A. Carter, and M. Ortiz. "A quantum-mechanically informed continuum model of hydrogen embrittlement." Journal of the Mechanics and Physics of Solids, vol.52, 10 (2004):2403?2430. It is shown that the model is capable of reproducing some distinctive experimental facts of this problem published in the literature.