HMN 2025: What is the open-source software for simulating materials fracture and fatigue

The Python package deal PhaseFieldX, developed by researcher Miguel Castillón at IMDEA Materials Institute, has been published within the Journal of Open Source Software (JOSS) in a paper titled “PhaseFieldX: An Open-Source Framework for Advanced Phase-Field Simulations.”

This computational software, primarily based on the FEniCSx platform, is designed to simulate fracture and fatigue in supplies utilizing the phase-field methodology, a complicated strategy that models discontinuities by a steady area, with out the necessity to explicitly signify cracks.

“PhaseFieldX is a software I’ve been utilizing as a part of my Ph.D. thesis,” explains Castillón.

“I noticed that FEniCSx, an open-source platform broadly used to unravel partial differential equations utilizing the finite component methodology, might facilitate advanced fracture and fatigue simulations, so I made a decision to develop a devoted package deal on high of it to optimize this sort of study.”

The phase-field methodology allows the illustration of fracture utilizing a steady area that describes the transition from intact to completely broken or fractured materials, thus avoiding the necessity to model cracks explicitly within the simulation.

This simplifies the modeling of fracture processes in a variety of supplies, together with brittle ones like metals or crystals.

PhaseFieldX consists of a number of applied models primarily based on probably the most broadly used formulations in scientific literature, permitting customers to discover and examine completely different approaches relying on the kind of materials or fracture phenomenon they want to study.

“There are quite a few formulations aimed toward finding out the advanced phenomenon of fracture in numerous supplies,” notes Castillón.

“With PhaseFieldX, it is attainable to simply check and implement completely different models, at all times making an allowance for the inherent limitations of every one. Moreover, the software program is designed to be versatile, reproducible, and straightforward to increase.”

Another power of the mission is its accessibility. Being open-source, anybody can use it, modify it, and contribute to its improvement via GitHub.

According to Castillón, “there aren’t any commercial applications that implement this sort of simulation straight. Generally, extra improvement or particular extensions are required, which aren’t available. PhaseFieldX fills that gap with an open and collaborative strategy.”

The package deal is constantly evolving, with new options and capabilities deliberate within the coming months. In addition, the researcher is engaged on a publication that may current vital advances within the study of fracture and fatigue utilizing the phase-field methodology, which will likely be integrated into future variations of PhaseFieldX.

Castillón developed PhaseFieldX at IMDEA Materials as a member of the Computational Solid Mechanics analysis group, led by Prof. Ignacio Romero, and the Multiscale Materials Simulation group, led by Prof. Javier Segurado.