Strength-Based Orthotropic Phase-Field Fracture Model for 3D-Printed Materials
Koirala, Bishal
Koirala, Bishal
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Abstract
3D-printed materials produced via fused deposition modeling (FDM) exhibit anisotropic mechanical behavior, with physical properties that vary along different loading directions. They often display orthotropic behavior due to their layer-by-layer deposition, resulting in crack growth that is highly influenced by the orientation of material layers. Accurately modeling orthotropic fracture remains one of the most challenging problems in the field of computational mechanics.Traditional fracture-mechanics methods represent cracks as sharp discontinuities, making their implementation in the Finite Element Method (FEM) challenging. The phase-field fracture (PFF) method describes crack topology using a continuous field, allowing the simulation of complex fracture phenomena, such as propagation, branching, and merging, without explicit crack tracking. Although PFF methods are highly effective in predicting complex crack propagation, their inherently energy-based formulation limits their ability to accurately capture crack nucleation, particularly in the absence of pronounced stress concentrations or pre-existing defects. We present a novel strength-based phase-field fracture model that incorporates a Tsai-Wu failure criterion to capture crack nucleation in orthotropic materials. Orthotropy is incorporated consistently through direction-dependent stiffness, material strength, and fracture energy using a physics-based structural tensor. The proposed framework is verified using representative numerical examples and validated through comparisons with experimental data, demonstrating improved predictions of fracture initiation and evolution in orthotropic materials.
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Date
1/1/2026
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Graduate Student
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Poster
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Civil and Environmental Engineering
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College of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences
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Engineering