A derivation of Griffith functionals from discrete finite-difference models (Q2217798)

In this paper, a variational approximation is provided by discrete finite-difference energies of Griffith's functional of the form \[ \lambda\int_{\Omega\backslash K} |\mathcal{E}u(x)|^2\,\mathrm{d}x + \mu\int_{\Omega\backslash K} |\mathrm{div}\,u(x)|^2\,\mathrm{d}x + \mathcal{H}^{d-1}(K) \] where \(\Omega\) is a bounded subset of \(\mathbb{R}^d\), \(K\subseteq\Omega\) is closed, \(u\in C^1(\Omega\backslash K; \mathbb{R}^d)\), \(\mathcal{E}u\) denotes the symmetric part of the gradient of \(u\), \(\mathrm{div}\,u\) is the divergence of \(u\) and \(\mathcal{H}^{d-1}\) is the \((d-1)\)-dimensional Hausdorff measure \(\Omega\) is the reference configuration and \(u\) represents the displacement field of the body. This type of functionals are widely used in the variational modeling of fracture mechanics for linearly elastic materials as in the framework of Griffith's theory of brittle fracture [\textit{A. A. Griffith}, Phil. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. A 221, 163--198 (1920; Zbl 1454.74137)]. The numerical treatment of Griffith's functionals presents some difficulties connected to the presence of the surface term \(\mathcal{H}^{d-1}(J_u)\). To deal with this, a finite-difference approximation of an Ambrosio-Tortorelli type brittle fracture functional is investigated in the discrete-to-continuum limit. The authors show the \(\Gamma\) -convergence of the Ambrosio-Tortorelli type model to the Griffith functional, when the discretization step is smaller than the ellipticity parameter, containing only a term enforcing Dirichlet boundary conditions and no \(L_p\) fidelity term. A discrete Ambrosio-Tortorelli approximation to the Griffith functional both in dimension d = 2 and d = 3, is provided in the spirit of a recent work [\textit{A. Chambolle} et al., Arch. Ration. Mech. Anal. 228, 867--889 (2018; Zbl 1391.35366].