Length scale and mesh bias sensitivity of phase-field models for brittle and cohesive fracture

Being able to seamlessly deal with complex crack patterns like branching, merging and even fragmentation, phase-field models (PFMs) are promising in the computational modeling of fracture of solids. There are, however, some unclear issues such as (i) are phase-field models mesh-bias objective? and (ii) what value should be selected for the length scale parameter? This manuscript provides answers to these practical questions. Three popular PFMs...