An open-source tool for simulating material fracture and fatigue

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

This computational tool, based on the FEniCSx platform, is designed to simulate fracture and fatigue in materials using the phase-field method, an advanced approach that models discontinuities through a continuous field, without the need to explicitly represent cracks.

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

“I saw that FEniCSx, an open-source platform widely used to solve partial differential equations using the finite element method, could facilitate complex fracture and fatigue simulations, so I decided to develop a dedicated package on top of it to optimize this kind of study.”

The phase-field method enables the representation of fracture using a continuous field that describes the transition from intact to fully damaged or fractured material, thus avoiding the need to model cracks explicitly in the simulation.

This simplifies the modeling of fracture processes in a wide range of materials, including brittle ones like metals or crystals.

PhaseFieldX includes multiple implemented models based on the most widely used formulations in scientific literature, allowing users to explore and compare different approaches depending on the type of material or fracture phenomenon they wish to study.

“There are numerous formulations aimed at studying the complex phenomenon of fracture in different materials,” notes Castillón.

“With PhaseFieldX, it’s possible to easily test and implement different models, always bearing in mind the inherent limitations of each one. Moreover, the software is designed to be flexible, reproducible, and easy to extend.”

Another strength of the project is its accessibility. Being open-source, anyone interested can use it, modify it, and contribute to its development via GitHub.

According to Castillón, “there are no commercial programs that implement this kind of simulation directly. Generally, additional development or specific extensions are required, which are not readily available. PhaseFieldX fills that gap with an open and collaborative approach.”

The package is continuously evolving, with new features and capabilities planned in the coming months. In addition, the researcher is working on a publication that will present significant advances in the study of fracture and fatigue using the phase-field method, which will be incorporated into future versions of PhaseFieldX.

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