Model-Free Fracture Mechanics and Fatigue

Abstract

We summarize our recent work on data-driven fracture mechanics. The governing equations stemming from variational principles are completed with a set of discrete data points encoding the information about the material behavior, thus the fracture-related modeling assumptions are completely removed. The solution at a given load step is identified as the point within the data set that best satisfies equilibrium and compatibility conditions stemming from global or local minimality of a free energy function. The data-driven approach is successfully tested for rateindependent and rate-dependent fracture including fatigue.