Numerical experiments in revisited brittle fracture

The numerical implementation of the model of brittle fracture developed in Francfort and Marigo (1998. J. Mech. Phys. Solids 46 (8), 1319–1342) is presented. Various computational methods based on variational approximations of the original functional are proposed. They are tested on several antiplanar and planar examples that are beyond the reach of the classical computational tools of fracture mechanics.