Putting a mechanical structure under repeated cyclic loading can lead to
fatigue crack initiation and propagation in materials. In engineering
processes, a fatigue crack evolution behavior can be very complicated
when the structure is in a complex environment. It has been shown that
internal friction is one of the most important factors for the fatigue
behavior of materials. However, there is still a lack of studies on how
to predict the influences of internal friction on fatigue crack
evolution. In this work, we show that the phase field model provides an
elegant solution for structures under different loading frequencies and
temperatures. Although the phase field fatigue model has been studied
for years for mechanical loading situations, the question of how to
include thermal fatigue effect remains open. In this work, we add
thermal stresses to the phase field model as the second fatigue driving
force. It is shown that the model is able to predict thermal fatigue
behavior.