Computation of Stress Intensity Factors by Using Global Crack-Line Displacement Fitting Procedure

A global crack-line displacement fitting procedure to extract the stress intensity factors (SIFs) is proposed in this paper. The proposed procedure uses the entire crack opening displacement (COD) data and its numerical calculation only involves in displacement fields. The post processing is greatly reduced and no new contour and remeshing are needed. The procedure can be easily applied to mixed mode crack problems with arbitrary crack shapes. In addition, the errors of the obtained SIFs can be estimated from the error information of COD data by this procedure. The procedure has been applied to several test examples of crack problems with their COD data being calculated by using a constant element boundary element method with two special crack tip elements. The results verified that the proposed procedure is reliable, accurate and easily implementing to extract SIFs. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Cracks emanating from a square hole in rectangular plate in tension

A numerical analysis of cracks emanating from a square hole in a rectangular plate in tension is performed using a hybrid displacement discontinuity method (a boundary element method). Detailed solutions of the stress intensity factors (SIFs) of the plane elastic crack problem are given, which can reveal the effect of geometric parameters of the cracked body on the SIFs. By comparing the calculated SIFs of the plane elastic crack problem with those of the centre crack in a rectangular plate in tension, in addition, an amplifying effect of the square hole on the SIFs is found. The numerical results reported here also prove that the boundary element method is simple, yet accurate, for calculating the SIFs of complex crack problems in finite plate.     

Stress intensity factor analysis of a three-dimensional interface crack between dissimilar anisotropic materials

A new numerical method to calculate the stress intensity factors (SIFs) of a three-dimensional interface crack between dissimilar anisotropic materials was developed. In this study, the M-integral method was employed for mode separation of the SIFs. The moving least-square method was utilized to calculate the M-integral. Using the M-integral with the moving least-square method, SIFs can be automatically calculated with only the nodal displacements from the finite element method (FEM). Here, SIFs analyses of some typical three-dimensional problems are demonstrated. Excellent agreement was achieved between the numerical results obtained by the present method and the corresponding results proposed by other researchers. In addition, the SIFs of a single-edge crack, a through crack, and a semi-circular crack between two anisotropic solids in three-dimensional structures were analyzed.     

A unified and integrated numerical‐analytical approach for evaluation of Jk‐integrals of an interfacial crack in orthotropic and isotropic bimaterials

A new unified and integrated method for the numerical‐analytical calculation of J_k‐integrals of an in‐plane traction free interfacial crack in homogeneous orthotropic and isotropic bimaterials is presented. The numerical algorithm, based on the boundary element crack shape sensitivities, is generic and flexible. It applies to both straight and curved interfacial cracks in anisotropic and/or isotropic bimaterials. The shape functions of semidiscontinuous quadratic quarter point crack tip elements are correctly scaled to adapt the singular oscillatory near tip field of tractions. The length of crack is designated as the design variable to compute the strain energy release rate precisely. Although an analytical equation relating J₁ and stress intensity factors (SIFs) exists, a similar relation for J₂ in debonded anisotropic solids for decoupling SIFs is not available. An analytical expression was recently derived by this author for J₂ in aligned orthotropic/orthotropic bimaterials with a straight interface crack. Using this new relation and the present computed J_k values, the SIFs can be decoupled without the need for an auxiliary equation. Here, the aforementioned analytical relation is reconstructed for cubic symmetry/isotropic bimaterials and used with the present numerical algorithm. An example with known analytical SIFs is presented. The numerical and analytical magnitudes of J_k for an interface crack in orthotropic/orthotropic and cubic symmetry/isotropic bimaterials show an excellent agreement.     

Cracks emanating from circular hole or square hole in rectangular plate in tension

A numerical analysis of cracks emanating from a circular hole (Fig. 1) or a square hole (Fig. 2) in rectangular plate in tension is performed by means of the displacement discontinuity method with crack-tip elements (a boundary element method) presented recently by the author. Detail solutions of the stress intensity factors (SIFs) of the two plane elastic crack problems are given, which can reveal the effect of geometric parameters of the cracked bodies on the SIFs. By comparing the SIFs of the two crack problems with those of the center crack in rectangular plate in tension (Fig. 3), in addition, an effect of the circular hole or the square hole on the SIFs of the center crack is discussed in detail. The numerical results reported here also illustrate that the boundary element method is simple, yet accurate for calculating the SIFs of complex crack problems in finite plate.     

Stress intensity factors evaluation for through-transverse crack in slab track system under vehicle dynamic load

The stress intensity factors (SIFs) for through-transverse crack in the China Railway Track System (CRTS II) slab track system under vehicle dynamic load are evaluated in this paper. A coupled dynamic model of a half-vehicle and the slab track is presented in which the half-vehicle is treated as a 18-degree-of-freedom multi-body system. The slab track is modeled as two continuous Bernoulli–Euler beams supported by a series of elastic rectangle plates on a viscoelastic foundation. The model is applied to calculate the vertical and lateral dynamic wheel–rail forces. A three-dimensional finite element model of the slab track system is then established in which the through-transverse crack at the bottom of concrete base is created by using extended finite element method (XFEM). The wheel–rail forces obtained by the vehicle-track dynamics calculation are utilized as the inputs to finite element model, and then the values of dynamic SIFs at the crack-tip are extracted from the XFEM solution by domain based interaction integral approach. The influences of subgrade modulus, crack length, crack angle, friction coefficient between cracked surfaces, and friction coefficient between faces of concrete base and subgrade on dynamic SIFs are investigated in detail. The analysis indicates that the subgrade modulus, crack length and crack angle have great effects on dynamic SIFs at the crack-tip, while both of the friction coefficients have negligible influences on variations of dynamic SIFs. Also the statistical characteristics of varying SIFs due to random wheel–rail forces are studied and results reveal that the distributions of dynamic SIFs follow an approximately Gaussian distribution with different mean values and standard deviations. The numerical results obtained are very useful in the maintenance of the slab track system.     

Numerical and experimental applications of the least-squares method to determine mode-II stress intensity factors for double fillet welded lap joints

Due to its simplicity, the least-squares method provides an efficient means to evaluate the stress intensity factors (SIFs) of cracks in complicated structures. This paper demonstrates numerical and experimental applications of the least-squares method to study mode-II SIFs of double fillet welded lap joints. In the numerical application, double fillet welded lap joints with different geometric parameters, including overlap length, weld leg size, plate thickness and plate length, were systematically analysed by the finite-element method combined with the least-squares method. The computed SIF results were then employed to develop the general formulae of the shearing fracture mode (mode-II) stress intensity factors. To validate the numerical results, three double fillet welded lap joint specimens were tested by a non-contact optical experiment using a common digital camera and a proposed image processing scheme. The measured crack shearing displacements near the crack tip were substituted into the least-squares procedure to obtain the SIFs of the specimens. The numerical and experimental results were in good agreement with the existing numerical results for double fillet welded lap joints provided in the handbook (Murakami, 1987). The non-contact optical experiment makes the field measurement of SIFs possible, which is very useful for fracture analysis or fatigue evaluation of structures like steel bridges, naval structures and offshore structures.     

Stress intensity factors of cracks emanating from a surface square hole in infinite body in tension

This paper deals with such a kind of surface crack problem with a same depth (called a liked‐plane crack problem for short). Based on the previous investigations on an internal rectangular crack and a surface rectangular crack in an infinite solid in tension and the hybrid displacement discontinuity method, a numerical approach for the liked‐plane crack problem is presented. Numerical examples are given to illustrate the numerical approach is simple, yet accurate for calculating the stress intensity factors (SIFs) of the liked‐plane crack problem. Specifically, SIFs of a pair of cracks emanating from a surface square hole in an infinite body in tension are investigated in detail.     

Boundary element analysis of three‐dimensional cracks in anisotropic solids

This paper presents a boundary element analysis of linear elastic fracture mechanics in three‐dimensional cracks of anisotropic solids. The method is a single‐domain based, thus it can model the solids with multiple interacting cracks or damage. In addition, the method can apply the fracture analysis in both bounded and unbounded anisotropic media and the stress intensity factors (SIFs) can be deduced directly from the boundary element solutions. The present boundary element formulation is based on a pair of boundary integral equations, namely, the displacement and traction boundary integral equations. While the former is collocated exclusively on the uncracked boundary, the latter is discretized only on one side of the crack surface. The displacement and/or traction are used as unknown variables on the uncracked boundary and the relative crack opening displacement (COD) (i.e. displacement discontinuity, or dislocation) is treated as a unknown quantity on the crack surface. This formulation possesses the advantages of both the traditional displacement boundary element method (BEM) and the displacement discontinuity (or dislocation) method, and thus eliminates the deficiency associated with the BEMs in modelling fracture behaviour of the solids. Special crack‐front elements are introduced to capture the crack‐tip behaviour. Numerical examples of stress intensity factors (SIFs) calculation are given for transversely isotropic orthotropic and anisotropic solids. For a penny‐shaped or a square‐shaped crack located in the plane of isotropy, the SIFs obtained with the present formulation are in very good agreement with existing closed‐form solutions and numerical results. For the crack not aligned with the plane of isotropy or in an anisotropic solid under remote pure tension, mixed mode fracture behavior occurs due to the material anisotropy and SIFs strongly depend on material anisotropy. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A new weight function approach using indirect boundary integral method

A new weight function approach to determine SIFs (stress intensity factors) using the indirect boundary integral method has been presented. The crack opening displacement field was represented by one boundary integral term in the form of a single-layer potential whose kernel was modified from the fundamental solution. The proposed method enables the calculation of SIFs using only one SIF solution, without any modification for the crack geometries symmetric in the two-dimensional plane, e.g. a center crack in a plate with or without an internal hole, double edge cracks, circumferential cracks or radial cracks in a pipe. The application procedure for this variety of crack geometries is very simple and straightforward with only one SIF solution. The necessary information in the analysis is two reference SIFs. The analysis results using several examples verified that the present closed-form solution was in good agreement with those of the literature and applicable to various crack geometries.     

A comparison of stress intensity factors obtained through crack closure integral and other approaches using eXtended element-free Galerkin method

In this paper, a new approach for extracting stress intensity factors (SIFs) by the extended element-free Galerkin method, through a crack closure integral (CCI) scheme, is proposed. The CCI calculation is used in conjunction with a local smoothing technique to improve the accuracy of the computed SIFs in a number of case studies of linear elastic fracture mechanics. The cases involve problems of mixed-mode, curved crack and thermo-mechanical loading. The SIFs by CCI, displacement and stress methods are compared with those based on the M-integral technique reported in the literature. The proposed CCI method involves very simple relations, and still gives good accuracy. The convergence of the results is also examined.     

Mixed-mode fracture analysis of composite bonded joints considering adhesives of different ductility

We propose a method for simulating linear elastic crack growth through an isogeometric boundary element method directly from a CAD model and without any mesh generation. To capture the stress singularity around the crack tip, two methods are compared: (1) a graded knot insertion near crack tip; (2) partition of unity enrichment. A well-established CAD algorithm is adopted to generate smooth crack surfaces as the crack grows. The M integral and \(J_k\) integral methods are used for the extraction of stress intensity factors (SIFs). The obtained SIFs and crack paths are compared with other numerical methods.     

巴西圆盘中心裂纹摩擦接触问题的逐点Lagrange乘子法

采用逐点Lagrange乘子法求解巴西圆盘中心裂纹在压剪荷载作用下裂纹面可能发生的摩擦接触问题。为了避免传统的Lagrange乘子法中总刚度阵求逆的困难,将Lagrange乘子逐点转到局部坐标系下,采用Gauss-Seidel迭代法求解法向和切向乘子,同时注意在求解的过程中对切向乘子约束修正,待所有点乘子求解完成后再变换到整体坐标系下迭代求解位移。与传统接触算法相比,该算法无需对总刚度阵求逆,降低了求解规模,提高了计算效率。通过该方法计算了巴西圆盘中心裂纹两种典型情况下的应力强度因子,计算结果与文献比较,吻合良好。考虑不同荷载角和裂纹长度对位移,应力强度因子和接触区的影响,并对不同摩擦系数下应力强度因子的影响进行了分析。结果表明:忽略裂纹接触摩擦作用,应力强度因子可能被高估。     

聚合物梯度材料黏弹性断裂的双控制参数

针对组分材料体积分数任意分布的聚合物功能梯度材料,研究其在蠕变加载条件下Ⅰ型裂纹应力强度因子（SIFs）和应变能释放率的时间相依特征。由Mori-Tanaka方法预测等效松弛模量,在Laplace变换域中采用梯度有限元法和虚拟裂纹闭合方法计算断裂参数,由数值逆变换得到物理空间的对应量。分析边裂纹平行于梯度方向的聚合物功能梯度板条,分别考虑均匀拉伸和三点弯曲蠕变加载。结果表明,聚合物梯度材料应变能释放率随时间增加,其增大的程度与黏弹性组分材料体积分数正相关;材料的非均匀黏弹性性质产生应力重新分布,导致裂纹尖端应力场强度随时间变化,当裂纹位于黏弹性材料含量较低的一边时,应力强度因子随时间增加,反之,随时间减小。而且,材料的应力强度因子与时间相依的变化范围和体积分数分布以及加载方式有关,当体积分数接近线性分布时,变化最明显,三点弯曲比均匀拉伸的变化大。SIFs随时间的延长增加或减小、加剧或减轻裂纹尖端部位的“衰坏”,表明黏弹性功能梯度裂纹体的延迟失稳需要联合采用应力强度因子与应变能释放率作为双控制参数。     

Higher order tip enrichment of eXtended Finite Element Method in thermoelasticity

An eXtended Finite Element Method (XFEM) is presented that can accurately predict the stress intensity factors (SIFs) for thermoelastic cracks. The method uses higher order terms of the thermoelastic asymptotic crack tip fields to enrich the approximation space of the temperature and displacement fields in the vicinity of crack tips—away from the crack tip the step function is used. It is shown that improved accuracy is obtained by using the higher order crack tip enrichments and that the benefit of including such terms is greater for thermoelastic problems than for either purely elastic or steady state heat transfer problems. The computation of SIFs directly from the XFEM degrees of freedom and using the interaction integral is studied. Directly computed SIFs are shown to be significantly less accurate than those computed using the interaction integral. Furthermore, the numerical examples suggest that the directly computed SIFs do not converge to the exact SIFs values, but converge roughly to values near the exact result. Numerical simulations of straight cracks show that with the higher order enrichment scheme, the energy norm converges monotonically with increasing number of asymptotic enrichment terms and with decreasing element size. For curved crack there is no further increase in accuracy when more than four asymptotic enrichment terms are used and the numerical simulations indicate that the SIFs obtained directly from the XFEM degrees of freedom are inaccurate, while those obtained using the interaction integral remain accurate for small integration domains. It is recommended in general that at least four higher order terms of the asymptotic solution be used to enrich the temperature and displacement fields near the crack tips and that the J- or interaction integral should always be used to compute the SIFs.     

A numerical procedure for the approximate WF solution of mode I SIFs in 3D geometries under arbitrary load

A numerical procedure was developed for the approximate weigth function (AWF) evaluation of reliable stress intensity factor (SIF) for part-through Mode I cracks for general load. Different from other WF procedures which require closed form reference SIFs, this procedure requires only limited number of discrete SIF solutions directly obtained from other numerical methods as reference SIFs to compute continuous SIFs as function of both the crack size and the location along the crack front. As an implement to the general numerical methods in the Damage and Safe Life analysis, this procedure substantially increases the value of numerical SIF results. The present procedure is relative simple, with most of basic relations being analytically soved, and therefore efficient in use. Several examples were presented to demonstrate the accuracy of this procedure.     

Modeling of crack growth through particulate clusters in brittle matrix by symmetric-Galerkin boundary element method

The interaction of a crack with perfectly bonded rigid isolated inclusions and clusters of inclusions in a brittle matrix is investigated using numerical simulations. Of particular interest is the role inclusions play on crack paths, stress intensity factors (SIFs) and the energy release rates with potential implications to the fracture behavior of particulate composites. The effects of particle size and eccentricity relative to the initial crack orientation are examined first as a precursor to the study of particle clusters. Simulations are accomplished using a new quasi-static crack-growth prediction tool based on the symmetric-Galerkin boundary element method, a modified quarter-point crack-tip element, the displacement correlation technique for evaluating SIFs, and the maximum principal stress criterion for crack-growth direction prediction. The numerical simulations demonstrate a complex interplay of crack-tip shielding and amplification mechanisms leading to significant toughening of the material.     

Rectangular tensile sheet with single edge crack or edge half-circular-hole crack

By using the displacement discontinuity method with crack-tip elements (a boundary element method) proposed recently by the author, this note presents the stress intensity factors (SIFs) of a rectangular tensile plate with single edge crack. Further this note studies the SIFs of crack emanating from an edge half-circular hole. By comparing the calculated SIFs of the single edge half-circular-hole crack with those of the single edge crack, a shielding effect of the half-circular hole on the SIFs of the single edge crack is discussed. It is found that the boundary element method is simple, yet accurate for calculating the SIFs of complex crack problems in finite plate.     

Study of mode I crack dynamic propagation behaviour and rock dynamic fracture toughness by using SCT specimens

To study crack dynamic propagation behaviour and rock dynamic fracture toughness, a single cleavage triangle (SCT) specimen was proposed in this paper. By using these specimens and a drop‐weight test system, impact experiments were conducted, and the crack propagation velocity and the fracture time were measured by using crack propagation gauges. To examine the effectiveness of the SCT specimen and to predict the test results, finite difference numerical models were established by using AUTODYN code, and the simulation results showed that the crack propagation path agrees with the test results, and crack arrest phenomena could happen. Meanwhile, by using these numerical models, the crack dynamic propagation mechanism was investigated. Finite element code ABAQUS was applied in the calculation of crack dynamic stress intensity factors (SIFs) based on specimen dimension and the loading curves measured, and the curves of crack dynamic SIFs versus time were obtained. The fracture toughness (including initiation toughness and propagation toughness) was determined according to the fracture time and crack speeds measured by crack propagation gauges. The results show that the SCT specimen is applicable to the study of crack dynamic propagation behaviour and fracture toughness, and in the process of crack propagation, the propagation toughness decreases with crack propagation velocity, and the crack arrest phenomena could happen. The critical SIF of an arrest crack (or arrest toughness) was higher than the crack propagation toughness but was lower than the initiation toughness.     

Mesh-free analysis of cracks in isotropic functionally graded materials

This paper presents a Galerkin-based meshless method for calculating stress-intensity factors (SIFs) for a stationary crack in two-dimensional functionally graded materials of arbitrary geometry. The method involves an element-free Galerkin method (EFGM), where the material properties are smooth functions of spatial coordinates and two newly developed interaction integrals for mixed-mode fracture analysis. These integrals can also be implemented in conjunction with other numerical methods, such as the finite element method (FEM). Five numerical examples including both mode-I and mixed-mode problems are presented to evaluate the accuracy of SIFs calculated by the proposed EFGM. Comparisons have been made between the SIFs predicted by EFGM and available reference solutions in the literature, generated either analytically or by FEM using various other fracture integrals or analyses. A good agreement is obtained between the results of the proposed meshless method and the reference solutions.