Different numerical methods of modelling crack initiation and propagation in heterogeneous materials (cohesive surface and cohesive zone models, computational cell approach, hybrid fracture/damage approach), their advantages and disadvantages are discussed. The damage and crack evolution in a heterogeneous (two-phase) rock is simulated numerically with the use of the finite element method and the element elimination technique for different arrangements of the brittle inclusions. The crack deviations at layers from brittle inclusions is observed in the numerical simulations.
The purpose of this work is to study the effect of the heterogeneity of rocks on their fracture behaviour. To solve this problem, the available numerical approaches to modelling fracture in complex materials are considered, their weak and strong sides are analyzed and compared. The "heterogeneity" of rocks is understood in this work as the arrangement of inclusions in the "matrix" of rock, and not as the dispersion of local properties of rocks (Mishnaevsky Jr and Schmauder, 1997, Mishnaevsky Jr, 1998). Different types of the arrangement of brittle inclusions in the elasto-plastic matrix and their effects of the crack propagation in rock are compared.
