An interaction integral method for 3D curved cracks in nonhomogeneous materials with complex interfaces

This work derives an interaction integral for the computation of mixed-mode stress intensity factors (SIFs) in three-dimensional (3D) nonhomogeneous materials with continuous or discontinuous properties. The present method is based on a two-state integral by the superposition of actual and auxiliary fields. In 3D domain formulation of the interaction integral derived here, the integrand does not involve any derivatives of material properties. Furthermore, the formulation can be proved to be still valid even when the integral domain contains material interfaces. Therefore, it is not necessary to limit the material properties to be continuous for the present formulation. On account of these advantages, the application range of the interaction integral can be greatly enlarged. This method in conjunction with the finite element method (FEM) is employed to solve several representative fracture problems. According to the comparison between the results and those from the published lectures, good agreement demonstrates the validation of the interaction integral. The results show that the present interaction integral is domain-independent for nonhomogeneous materials with interfaces.     

A domain-independent interaction integral for fracture analysis of nonhomogeneous piezoelectric materials

Piezoelectric materials and structures contain more or less electromechanical interfaces in engineering applications. It is difficult to obtain the fracture parameters efficiently of the piezoelectric materials with complex interfaces. This paper presents a domain-independent interaction integral for material nonhomogeneity and discontinuity which can be used for solving the stress intensity factors (SIFs) and the electric displacement intensity factor (EDIF) of piezoelectric materials with complex interfaces efficiently. The interaction integral is based on the J-integral by superimposition of two admissible states and the present formulation does not involve any derivatives of mechanical and electric properties. Moreover, it is proved that the interface in the integral domain does not affect the value of the interaction integral and thus, the present method does not require electromechanical parameters of piezoelectric materials to be continuous. The interaction integral method combined with the extended finite element method (XFEM) is used to investigate the influences of material continuity on the SIF and the EDIF and the results show that the material parameters and their first-order derivatives affect both the SIF and the EDIF greatly, while the higher-order derivatives affect both of them slightly.     

A domain-independent interaction integral for magneto-electro-elastic materials

Magneto-electro-elastic (MEE) materials usually consist of piezoelectric (PE) and piezomagnetic (PM) phases. Between different constituent phases, there exist lots of interfaces with discontinuous MEE properties. Complex interface distribution brings a great difficulty to the fracture analysis of MEE materials since the present fracture mechanics methods can hardly solve the fracture parameters efficiently of a crack surrounded by complex interfaces. This paper develops a new domain formulation of the interaction integral for the computation of the fracture parameters including stress intensity factors (SIFs), electric displacement intensity factor (EDIF) and magnetic induction intensity factor (MIIF) for linear MEE materials. The formulation derived here does not involve any derivatives of material properties and moreover, it can be proved that an arbitrary interface in the integral domain does not affect the validity and the value of the interaction integral. Namely, the interaction integral is domain-independent for material interfaces and thus, its application does not require material parameters to be continuous. Due to this advantage, the interaction integral becomes an effective approach for extracting the fracture parameters of MEE materials with complex interfaces. Combined with the extended finite element method (XFEM), the interaction integral is employed to solve several representative problems to verify its accuracy and domain-independence. Good results show the effectiveness of the present method in the fracture analysis of MEE materials with continuous and discontinuous properties. Finally, the particulate MEE composites composed of PE and PM phases are considered and four schemes of different property-homogenization level are proposed for comparing their effectiveness.     

An interaction energy integral method for nonhomogeneous materials with interfaces under thermal loading

A plane crack problem of nonhomogeneous materials with interfaces subjected to static thermal loading is investigated. A modified interaction energy integral method (IEIM) is developed to obtain the mixed-mode thermal stress intensity factors (TSIFs). Compared with the previous IEIM, the original point of this paper is: the domain-independence of the modified IEIM still stands in nonhomogeneous materials with interfaces under thermal loading. Therefore, the modified IEIM can still be applied to obtain the TSIFs of nonhomogeneous material even if the integral domain includes interfaces. The modified IEIM is combined with the extended finite element method (XFEM) to solve several thermal fracture problems of nonhomogeneous materials. Good agreement can be obtained compared with the analytic solutions and the domain-independence of the IEIM is verified. Therefore, the present method is effective to study the TSIFs of nonhomogeneous materials even when the materials contain interfaces. The influence of the discontinuity of the material properties (thermal expansion coefficient, thermal conductivity and Young’s modulus) on the TSIFs is investigated. The results show that the discontinuity of both thermal expansion coefficient and Young’s modulus affects the TSIFs greatly, while the discontinuity of thermal conductivity does not arouse obvious change of the TSIFs.     

MESHLESS METHOD FOR 2D MIXED-MODE CRACK PROPAGATION BASED ON VORONOI CELL

A meshless method integrated with linear elastic fracture mechanics (LEFM) is presented for 2D mixed-mode crack propagation analysis. The domain is divided automatically into sub-domains based on Voronoi cells, which are used for quadrature for the potential energy. The continuous crack propagation is simulated with an incremental crack-extension method which assumes a piecewise linear discretization of the unknown crack path. For each increment of the crack extension, the meshless method is applied to carry out a stress analysis of the cracked structure. The J-integral, which can be decomposed into mode I and mode II for mixed-mode crack, is used for the evaluation of the stress intensity factors (SIFs). The crack-propagation direction, predicted on an incremental basis, is computed by a criterion defined in terms of the SIFs. The flowchart of the proposed procedure is presented and two numerical problems are analyzed with this method. The meshless results agree well with the experimental ones, which validates the accuracy and efficiency of the method.     

A numerical approach for a crack problem by Gauss–Chebyshev quadrature

In this paper, a problem of a crack in an orthotropic strip is studied under plane strain conditions. It is assumed that normal displacements and shear stresses do not act on neither of the boundaries of the strip. Cauchy-type singular integral equation for the crack problem is derived by using the theory of plane elasticity and the Fourier transformation technique. A quadrature collocation approach is adopted for the numerical solutions of the singular integral equation. The effect of relative thickness and mechanical properties of strip on Mode I stress intensity factors (SIFs) are examined under different loading conditions. Some sample results are given for SIFs; also, material orthotropy and geometrical effects are discussed in detail.     

NUMERICAL SIMULATION OF CRACK GROWTH IN BRITTLE MATRIX OF PARTICLE REINFORCED COMPOSITES USING THE XFEM TECHNIQUE

Crack growth in particle reinforced composites is significantly influenced by the character of the reinforcement particles.To accurately deal with such problems,the extended finite element method (XFEM...     

The interaction integral for fracture of orthotropic functionally graded materials: evaluation of stress intensity factors

The interaction integral is an accurate and robust scheme for evaluating mixed-mode stress intensity factors. This paper extends the concept to orthotropic functionally graded materials and addresses fracture mechanics problems with arbitrarily oriented straight and/or curved cracks. The gradation of orthotropic material properties are smooth functions of spatial coordinates, which are integrated into the element stiffness matrix using the so-called “generalized isoparametric formulation”. The types of orthotropic material gradation considered include exponential, radial, and hyperbolic-tangent functions. Stress intensity factors for mode I and mixed-mode two-dimensional problems are evaluated by means of the interaction integral and the finite element method. Extensive computational experiments have been performed to validate the proposed formulation. The accuracy of numerical results is discussed by comparison with available analytical, semi-analytical, or numerical solutions.     

Determination of mixed-mode stress intensity factors, fracture toughness, and crack turning angle for anisotropic foam material

A numerical and experimental investigation for determining mixed-mode stress intensity factors, fracture toughness, and crack turning angle for BX-265 foam insulation material, used by NASA to insulate the external tank (ET) for the space shuttle, is presented. BX-265 foam is a type of spray-on foam insulation (SOFI), similar to the material used to insulate attics in residential construction. This cellular material is a good insulator and is very lightweight. Breakup of segments of this foam insulation on the shuttle ET impacting the shuttle thermal protection tiles during liftoff is believed to have caused the space shuttle Columbia failure during re-entry. NASA engineers are interested in understanding the processes that govern the breakup/fracture of this material from the shuttle ET. The foam is anisotropic in nature and the required stress and fracture mechanics analysis must include the effects of the direction dependence on material properties. Material testing at NASA Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) has indicated that the foam can be modeled as a transversely isotropic material. As a first step toward understanding the fracture mechanics of this material, we present a general theoretical and numerical framework for computing stress intensity factors (SIFs), under mixed-mode loading conditions, taking into account the material anisotropy. We present SIFs for middle tension – M(T) – test specimens, using 3D finite element stress analysis (ANSYS) and FRANC3D fracture analysis software. SIF values are presented for a range of foam material orientations. Mode I fracture toughness of the material is determined based on the SIF value at failure load. We also present crack turning angles for anisotropic foam material under mixed-mode loading. The results represent a quantitative basis for evaluating the strength and fracture properties of anisotropic foam insulation material.     

A domain-independent integral for computation of stress intensity factors along three-dimensional crack fronts and edges by BEM

The present work deals with an evaluation of stress intensity factors (SIFs) along straight crack fronts and edges in three-dimensional isotropic elastic solids. A new numerical approach is developed for extraction, from a solution obtained by the boundary element method (BEM), of those SIFs, which are relevant for a failure assessment of mechanical components. In particular, the generalized SIFs associated to eigensolutions characterized by unbounded stresses at a neighbourhood of the crack front or a reentrant edge and also that associated to T-stress at the crack front can be extracted. The method introduced is based on a conservation integral, called H-integral, which leads to a new domain-independent integral represented by a scalar product of the SIF times some element shape function defined along the crack front or edge. For sufficiently small element lengths these weighted averages of SIFs give reasonable pointwise estimation of the SIFs. A proof of the domain integral independency, based on the bi-orthogonality of the classical two-dimensional eigensolutions associated to a corner problem, is presented. Numerical solutions of two three-dimensional problems, a crack problem and a reentrant edge problem, are presented, the accuracy and convergence of the new approach for SIF extraction being analysed.     

基于p型有限元法和围线积分法计算复合型应力强度因子

传统有限元法由于采用低阶插值计算应力强度因子时,需要划分的网格数较多,收敛速度较慢,得到的应力强度因子精度不足。p型有限元法在网格确定时通过增加插值多项式的阶数来提高计算精度,具有网格划分少、收敛速度快、精度高、自适应能力强等特点。本文采用基于p型有限元法的有限元计算软件StressCheck计算得到应力场和位移场,并由围线积分法导出混合型应力强度因子(SIFs)。通过几个经典算例,分析了围线的选择对计算精度的影响,计算了不同裂纹长度、不同裂纹角度和裂纹在应力集中区域不同位置时的应力强度因子。并将数值结果、理论解与文献中其他数值计算方法所得的部分结果进行了对比分析,结果表明自由度数不大于7000时,导出的应力强度因子相对误差最大不超过1.2%,数值解表现出较高的精度及数值稳定性。     

An improved numerical method for computation of stress intensity factors along 3D curved non-planar cracks in FGMs

A simplified strategy based on the interaction energy integral is implemented in the finite element framework to evaluate mixed mode Stress Intensity Factors (SIFs) in 3D non-planar cracks. The proposed approach does not require any a priori information about crack front and crack surface curvatures, therefore different arbitrary non-planar cracks can be easily investigated. In particular, both conical and lens-shaped cracks in homogeneous materials are considered as case studies in order to demonstrate the accuracy of the present approach. Finally, the computational strategy is extended to Functionally Graded Materials (FGMs) and the effect of graded material properties (Young’s modulus and Poisson’s ratio) on the SIFs is studied in detail.     

Computational model for short-fiber composites with eigenstrain formulation of boundary integral equations

A computational model is proposed for short-fiber reinforced materials with the eigenstrain formulation of the boundary integral equations （BIE） and solved with the newly developed boundary point method （BPM）. The model is closely derived from the concept of the equivalent inclusion Of Eshelby tensors. Eigenstrains are iteratively determined for each short-fiber embedded in the matrix with various properties via the Eshelby tensors, which can be readily obtained beforehand either through analytical or numerical means. As unknown variables appear only on the boundary of the solution domain, the solution scale of the inhomogeneity problem with the model is greatly reduced. This feature is considered significant because such a traditionally time-consuming problem with inhomogeneity can be solved most cost-effectively compared with existing numerical models of the FEM or the BEM. The numerical examples are presented to compute the overall elastic properties for various short-fiber reinforced composites over a representative volume element （RVE）, showing the validity and the effectiveness of the proposed computational modal and the solution procedure.     

Computational model for short-fiber composites with eigenstrain formulation of boundary integral equations

A computational model is proposed for short-fiber reinforced materials with the eigenstrain formulation of the boundary integral equations(BIE)and solved with the newly developed boundary point method(BPM).The model is closely derived from the concept of the equivalent inclusion of Eshelby tensors.Eigenstrains are iteratively determined for each short.fiber embedded in the matrix with various properties via the Eshelby tensors,which can be readily obtained beforehand either through analytical or numerical means.As unknown variables appear only on the boundary of the solution domain,the solution scale of the inhomogeneity problem with the model is greatly reduced.This feature is considered significant because such a traditionally time-consuming problem with inhomogeneity can be solved most cost-effectively compared with existing numerical models of the FEM or the BEM.The numerical examples are presented to compute the overall elastic properties for various short-fiber reinforced composites over a representative volume element(RVE),showing the validity and the effectiveness of the proposed computational modal and the solution procedure.     

Antiplane mechanical and inplane electric time-dependent load applied to two coplanar cracks in piezoelectric ceramic material

This work is concerned with the dynamic response of two coplanar cracks in a piezoelectric ceramic under antiplane mechanical and inplane electric time-dependent load. The cracks are assumed to act either as an insulator or as a conductor. Laplace and Fourier transforms are used to reduce the mixed boundary value problems to Cauchy-type singular integral equations in Laplace transform domain. A numerical Laplace inversion algorithm is used to determine the dynamic stress and electric displacement factors that depend on time and geometry. A normalized equivalent parameter describing the ratio of the equivalent magnitude of electric load to that of mechanical load is introduced in the numerical computation of the dynamic stress intensity factor (DSIF) which has a similar trend as that for the pure elastic material. The results show that the dynamic electric field will impede or enhance crack propagation in a piezoelectric ceramic material at different stages of the dynamic electromechanical load. Moreover, the electromechanical response is greatly affected by the ratio of the crack length to the ligament between the cracks. The stress and electric displacement intensity factor can be combined by the energy density factor or function to address the fracture of piezoelectric materials under the combined influence of electromechanical loading.     

Continuous versus discrete (invariant) representations of fibrous structure for modeling non-linear anisotropic soft tissue behavior

The non-linear anisotropic mechanical response of soft tissue is largely dependent on the structure of the underlying collagen network. Collagen structure has been successfully quantified for various tissue types in terms of a locally defined fiber orientation distribution function. The continuous distribution function derived from structural data can be directly incorporated into an integral representation of the strain energy function for modeling tissue behavior. Alternatively, non-integral (often invariant-based) strain energy functions have been developed in which the collagen network structure is approximated using a discrete set of fiber classes. The advantage of such an approach is increased computational efficiency since the values of the strain energy and its derivatives (e.g. stress) can be evaluated without numerical integration. However, because of the structural simplifications such models are presumably unable to predict mechanical data as accurately as the models which incorporate a continuous orientation distribution function. In this work the ability of discrete versus continuous fiber models to capture the non-linear anisotropic response of soft tissue is critically analyzed. Both unimodal and bimodal fiber distributions are considered. A general formulation has been developed in terms of an arbitrary fiber strain energy function, such that the analysis can be performed for any suitable fiber material model. For tissue structures in which a discrete representation is suitable, techniques are presented for establishing the range of loading conditions in which model accuracy is not significantly compromised, thus justifying the use of an invariant-based modeling approach.     

直接计算应力强度因子的扩展有限元法

系统地给出了直接计算应力强度因子的扩展有限元法。该方法以常规有限元法为基础,利用单位分解法思想,通过在近似位移表达式中增加能够反映裂纹面的不连续函数及反映裂尖局部特性的裂尖渐进位移场函数,间接体现裂纹面的存在,从而无需使裂纹面与有限元网格一致,无需在裂尖布置高密度网格,也不需要后处理就可以直接计算出应力强度因子,并且大大简化了前后处理工作。最后通过两个简单算例验证了该方法的精度,分析了影响计算结果的因素,并与采用J积分计算的应力强度因子作了对比,得出了两种方法计算精度相当的结论。     

动态载荷下功能梯度复合材料的圆币形裂纹问题

研究了动态载荷下功能梯度材料中的圆币形裂纹问题．假设材料为横观各向同性,并且含有多个垂直于厚度方向的裂纹,材料参数沿轴向（与裂纹面垂直的方向）为变化的,沿该方向将材料划分为许多单层,各单层材料参数为常数,利用Hankel变换祛,在Laplace域内推导出了控制问题的对偶积分方程组．利用Laplace数值反演,得出了裂纹尖端的动态应力强度因子和能量释放率．研究了含两个裂纹的功能梯度接头结构,分析了材料非均匀性参数对应力强度因子和能量释放率的影响．     

Dynamic stress intensity factor of the weak/micro-discontinuous interface crack of a FGM coating

The concepts and classification are brought forth for the strong-discontinuous interface, the weak-discontinuous interface, the micro-discontinuous interface and the all-continuous interface. The mechanical model is established for the dynamic fracture problem of the weak-discontinuous interface between a FGM coating and a FGM substrate. The Cauchy singular integral equation for the crack is derived by integral transform, and the allocation method is used to get the numerical solution. Analysis of the numerical solution indicates that the weak discontinuity is an important factor affecting the SIFs of the interfacial crack. To reduce the weak discontinuity is beneficial to the decrease of the SIFs. Contrast between the solution of the weak-discontinuous interface and that of the micro-discontinuous one shows that the micro-discontinuity is a kind of connection relation of mechanical property better than the weak discontinuity for the coating–substrate structure. To make the interface be micro-discontinuous is helpful to enhance the capacity of the functionally gradient coating–substrate interface to resist dynamic fracture. The first rank micro-discontinuity is enough to reduce the SIFs notably, however, the higher-rank micro-discontinuous terms, which is equal to or higher than the second rank, have less effect on the SIFs. In addition, the thickness of the coating and the substrate and the applied peel stress are also important factors affecting the dynamic SIFs.     

Dynamic stress intensity factors for homogeneous and smoothly heterogeneous materials using the interaction integral method

Dynamic stress intensity factors (DSIFs) are important fracture parameters in understanding and predicting dynamic fracture behavior of a cracked body. To evaluate DSIFs for both homogeneous and non-homogeneous materials, the interaction integral (conservation integral) originally proposed to evaluate SIFs for a static homogeneous medium is extended to incorporate dynamic effects and material non-homogeneity, and is implemented in conjunction with the finite element method (FEM). The technique is implemented and verified using benchmark problems. Then, various homogeneous and non-homogeneous cracked bodies under dynamic loading are employed to investigate dynamic fracture behavior such as the variation of DSIFs for different material property profiles, the relation between initiation time and the domain size (for integral evaluation), and the contribution of each distinct term in the interaction integral.