An efficient and robust monolithic approach to phase-field quasi-static brittle fracture using a modified Newton method

Variational phase-field methods have been shown powerful for the modeling of complex crack propagation without a priori knowledge of the crack path or ad hoc criteria. However, phase-field models suffer from their energy functional being non-linear and non-convex, while requiring a very fine mesh to capture the damage gradient. This implies a high computational cost, limiting concrete engineering applications of the method. In this work, we propose an efficient and robust fully monolithic solver for phase-field fracture using a modified Newton method with inertia correction and an energy line-search. To illustrate the gains in efficiency obtained with our approach, we compare it to two popular methods for phase-field fracture, namely the alternating minimization and the quasi-monolithic schemes. To facilitate the evaluation of the time step dependent quasi-monolithic scheme, we couple the latter with an extrapolation correction loop controlled by a damage-based criteria. Finally, we show through four benchmark tests that the modified Newton method we propose is straightforward, robust, and leads to identical solutions, while offering a reduction in computation time by factors of up to 12 and 6 when compared to the alternating minimization and quasi-monolithic schemes.