An adaptive acceleration scheme for phase-field fatigue computations.

Area of Science:

• Computational Materials Science
• Mechanical Engineering
• Solid Mechanics

Background:

• Phase-field models accurately simulate fatigue behavior.
• High-cycle fatigue simulations are computationally expensive due to small length scales and long loading histories.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop an adaptive acceleration scheme for phase-field fatigue models.
• To overcome computational limitations in high-cycle fatigue regime simulations.

Main Methods:

• Proposed a fully adaptive acceleration scheme using a cycle jump technique.
• Introduced a novel cycle-jump criterion based on a global fatigue advancement variable.
• Developed an accurate and efficient method for computing fatigue crack length, handling multiple cracks.

Main Results:

• Achieved speedups up to four orders of magnitude in high-cycle fatigue simulations.
• Demonstrated consistently high accuracy compared to traditional methods.
• The method is parameter-free and material-independent.

Conclusions:

• The proposed acceleration scheme offers a significant computational advantage for phase-field fatigue modeling.
• The cycle jump technique and crack length computation method enhance efficiency and accuracy.
• This approach enables robust simulations of fatigue crack propagation in the high-cycle regime.