Fracture modeling in cracked Brazilian discs based on the topological derivative method

Abstract

Brazilian disc tests are often used to study the mixed-mode fracture toughness and the crack behavior of rock-like materials. In this work, the predictive capability of the topological derivative method using the Francfort–Marigo damage model for describing the brittle fracture nucleation and propagation processes of centrally cracked Brazilian discs is presented. Simulations were carried out for different angles of the initial pre-crack with respect to the applied compressive load, enabling the analysis of configurations involving the combination of shearing and opening modes. The numerical results demonstrated that the proposed approach may adequately capture the fracturing processes in the Brazilian discs, showing an excellent correlation with experimental data from the literature. These processes include failure characterization and typical fracture trajectories.