Numerical investigation of dynamic crack branching under biaxial loading

Dynamic crack growth and branching of a running crack under various biaxial loading conditions in homogeneous and heterogeneous brittle or quasi-brittle materials is investigated numerically using RFPA2D (two-dimensional rock failure process analysis)-Dynamic program which is fully parallelized with OpenMP directives on Windows. Six 2D models were set up to examine the effect of biaxial dynamic loading and heterogeneity on crack growth. The numerical simulation vividly depicts the whole evolution of crack and captured the crack path and the angles between branches. The path of crack propagation for homogenous materials is straight trajectory while for heterogeneous materials is curved. Increasing the ratio of the loading stress in x-direction to the stress in y-direction, the macroscopic angles between branches become larger. Some parasitic small cracks are also observed in simulation. For heterogeneous brittle and quasi-brittle materials coalescence of the microcracks is the mechanism of dynamic crack growth and branching. The crack tip propagation velocity is determined by material properties and independent of loading conditions.