A dynamic electro-thermo-mechanical model of dielectric breakdown in solids using peridynamics

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The electro-thermo-mechanical breakdown of dielectric solids is modeled using peridynamics to describe the brittle fracture of a material under high electric fields.A coupled electrostatic, elastodynamic, thermodynamic model is used wherein electrostatic forces are computed and applied to the mechanical model and temperature effects are included.Fracture is simulated using peridynamics, a reformulation of elasticity that incorporates material failure.Coupling occurs between the electrostatic and mechanical forces and also the electrical material properties: specifically, the Lorentz and Kelvin forces are used to couple the electrostatic fields to the stress fields, conductivity is treated as nonlinear and a function of temperature, and mechanical damage is used to alter the permittivity.Results demonstrate that the method is capable of reproducing branching breakdown patterns seen in experiments using a deterministic method.