| Abstract: | Quarter-point elements are used very frequently for fracture mechanics computations, because the quarter-point technique yields the required singular interpolation without any modification to existing software. This advantage is particularly significant for three-dimensional stress intensity factor computations because of the difficulty of implementing other techniques. However, in practical 3-D applications, the crack front is usually curved, and this note proves that a crack front distortion leads to a negative Jacobian in the region surrounding the crack front. The numerical difficulties to be expected depend on the aspect ratio of the elements. |
