Space-time formulation, discretization, and computational performance studies for phase-field fracture optimal control problems

•Space-time phase-field fracture modeling.•Space-time Galerkin finite element discretization including the crack irreversibility.•Discontinuous Galerkin (dG) time discretization and continuous Galerkin (cG) in space.•Space-time phase-field fracture optimal control with reduced cost functional.•Derivation and time-stepping of the auxiliary equations adjoint, tangent, and adjoint Hessian.•Six extensive numerical experiments demonstrating performance. The purpose of this work is the development of space-time discretization schemes for phase-field optimal control problems. Specifically in the optimal control minimization problem, a tracking-type cost functional is minimized to steer the crack via the phase-field variable into a desired pattern. To achieve such optimal solutions, Neumann type boundary conditions need to be determined. First, a time discretization of the forward problem is derived using a discontinuous Galerkin formulation. Here, a challenge is to include regularization terms and the crack irreversibility constraint. The optimal control setting is formulated by means of the Lagrangian approach from which the primal part, adjoint, tangent and adjoint Hessian are derived. Herein the overall Newton algorithm is based on a reduced approach by eliminating the state constraint, namely the displacement and phase-field unknowns, but keeping the control variable as the only unknown. From the low-order discontinuous Galerkin discretization, adjoint time-stepping schemes are finally obtained. Both our formulation and algorithmic developments are substantiated and illustrated with six numerical experiments.