NUMERICAL ANALYSIS OF PATTERN FORMATION IN DESICCATION CRACK PHENOMENON

Abstract

 Cracks in desiccation crack phenomenon show a wide variety of geometric patterns. Our intuition tells that the major source of this wide variety is the coupling of water diffusion induced volume change, deformation, and fracture. In this paper, we propose a coupling model of i) change in water volume fraction due to desiccation, ii) deformation field corresponding to the inhomogeneous volume shrinkage, and iii) crack formation. Geometric patterns in desiccation crack phenomenon have been reproduced by weakly coupling the finite element analysis of water diffusion and analysis of deformation and failure by Particle Discretization Scheme Finite Element Method.