An adaptive coupling modeling between peridynamics and classical continuum mechanics for dynamic crack propagation and crack branching

•An adaptive coupling modeling between the peridynamics and classical continuum mechanicsis developed for the dynamic crack propagation and crack branching. Numerical and experimental verifications demonstrate the accuracy of the coupled model and algorithm.•Simulations present phenomena similar to what happens during the “initial roughening” and match surprisingly well with experimental observations of crack branching in Field’s study.•Newmark’s numerical integration provides a remarkable convergence in time discretization despite a big-time spam. The advance of Newmark’s numerical integration also significantly improves computational efficiency and reduces computational costs.•The parameter studies on time increments and mesh density under uniform grid refinement (m-convergence) and under changing the peridynamic horizon (δ-convergence) are proposed to guarantee excellent convergence and accuracy of the coupled model and algorithm.