The authors explore a unifying model which couples phase separation and damage processes in a system of partial differential equations. The model has technological applications to solder materials where interactions of both phenomena have been observed and cannot be neglected for a realistic description. The equations are derived in a thermodynamically consistent framework and suitable weak formulations for various types of this coupled system are presented. In the main part, existence of weak solutions is proven and degenerate limits are investigated.

The authors explore a unifying model which couples phase separation and damage processes in a system of partial differential equations. The model has technological applications to solder materials where interactions of both phenomena have been observed and cannot be neglected for a realistic description. The equations are derived in a thermodynamically consistent framework and suitable weak formulations for various types of this coupled system are presented. In the main part, existence of weak solutions is proven and degenerate limits are investigated.