Mesoscale modeling of brittle damage in polycrystalline materials with peridynamics.

UNLABELLED: A peridynamic model for polycrystalline materials is introduced to model the evolution of elastic-brittle damage under fatigue conditions. The peridynamic simulations for elastic deformations in a polycrystal are verified against corresponding Finite Element solutions for the synthetic microstructure René 88DT, an FCC polycrystalline Ni-based superalloy. The model is used to simulate the nucleation and propagation of brittle damage from fatigue loading. Damage nucleation locations obtained by the peridynamic model match those with high maximum Schmid factors for the given microstructure. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s41313-026-00085-5.