A review of phase-field models, fundamentals and their applications to composite laminates

Abstract Innovations of advanced materials have been at the core of most engineering technologies, devices and systems. Composite laminates in particular have been extensively employed in many major and advanced industries including aircraft, maritime transport, and automobiles. Failure in composite structures is critical and often complicated, and that is the consequence of the evolution of and interactions among the constitutive fracture events (e.g., matrix cracking, fibre/matrix debonding, delamination, fibre breakage, fibre kinking). Accurate prediction of progressive failure in composite laminates is crucial for the development and design of most lightweight components and structures. This paper, for the first time, outlines a critical review on the developments and recent applications of regularized phase field models for failure problems in composite laminates and structures. Fundamentals of the phase field models are introduced and the developments of the regularized model from different aspects for the modeling are reviewed. Phase field models as well as the modeling strategies from different levels of idealization, i.e., microscopic, mesoscopic and macroscopic length scales are presented. The realization of existing widely used models such as cohesive zone model, plasticity, and damage initiation criterion and energy decomposition into the phase field model is also addressed. Typical applications of the phase field models in composite laminate modeling are discussed.