Validation simulations for the variational approach to fracture

In this article, we focus on the validation of Francfort and Marigo's variational approach to fracture based on some classical fracture experiments. We show that this approach can be used to faithfully account for unknown crack paths even for complex loadings and geometry. We revisit the backtracking algorithm, aimed at avoiding some spurious local minimizers of the total fracture energy and introduce a variant: the deep backtracking algorithm.