Phase-field modeling of hydraulic fracturing in RVEs of heterogeneous materials

Abstract

Modeling hydraulic fracturing is a complex task that involves multiple physical phenomena, including the emergence of complex crack patterns driven by fluid and solid interactions. It is, however, an indispensable subject for achieving efficiency and safety in various processes across geotechnical engineering. Furthermore, most hydraulic fracturing applications deal with materials that are heterogeneous at a certain scale. At the microscopic level, these materials can be interpreted as a heterogeneous medium with distinct mechanical properties. As damage begins with microscale microcrack and their behavior may be influenced by fluid pressure, the study of hydraulic fracture propagation in heterogeneous materials represents a relevant research topic. Accordingly, this work aims to model pressure-driven fracture propagation in multiphase materials using a phase-field approach. Numerical results will be presented showing the influence of the pressure load on different random distributions of components in representative volume elements (RVEs) of quasi-brittle materials.