Approximation of a brittle fracture energy with a constraint of non-interpenetration (Q1750305)

Linear fracture mechanics usually can be framed in a variational context as a minimization problem over a SBD type space. The corresponding functional can in turn be approximated in the sense of \(\Gamma\)-convergence by a sequence of functionals involving a phase field as well as the displacement field. The authors show that a similar approximation persists if additionally imposing a non-interpenetration constraint in the minimization, namely that only nonnegative normal jumps should be permissible.