FATIGUE GROWTH MODELING OF MIXED-MODE CRACK IN PLANE ELASTIC MEDIA

This paper presents an extension of a displacement discontinuity method with cracktip elements （a boundary element method） proposed by the author for fatigue crack growth analysis in plane elastic media under mixed-mode conditions. The boundary element method consists of the non-singular displacement discontinuity elements presented by Crouch and Starfield and the crack-tip displacement discontinuity elements due to the author. In the boundary element implementation the left or right crack-tip element is placed locally at the corresponding left or right crack tip on top of the non-singular displacement discontinuity elements that cover the entire crack surface and the other boundaries. Crack growth is simulated with an incremental crack extension analysis based on the maximum circumferential stress criterion. In the numerical simulation, for each increment of crack extension, remeshing of existing boundaries is not required because of an intrinsic feature of the numerical approach. Crack growth is modeled by adding new boundary elements on the incremental crack extension to the previous crack boundaries. At the same time, the element characteristics of some related elements are adjusted according to the manner in which the boundary element method is implemented. As an example, the fatigue growth process of cracks emanating from a circular hole in a plane elastic plate is simulated using the numerical simulation approach.     

A boundary element modeling of fatigue crack growth in a plane elastic plate

This paper presents an extension of a boundary element method to fatigue growth analysis of mixed-mode cracked plane elastic bodies. The method consists of the non-singular displacement discontinuity element presented by Crouch and Starfield and the crack-tip displacement discontinuity element due to the author. In the boundary element implementation the left or the right crack-tip element is placed locally at the corresponding left or right crack tip on top of non-singular displacement discontinuity elements that cover the entire crack surface and the other boundaries. Crack growth is simulated with an incremental crack extension analysis based on the modified maximum strain energy density criterion. In numerical simulation, for each increment of crack extension, remeshing of existing boundaries is not required because of an intrinsic feature of the boundary element method. Crack growth is simulated by adding new boundary elements on the incremental crack extension to the previous crack boundaries. At the same time, the element characters of some related elements are adjusted according to the manner in which the boundary element method is implemented. Some numerical results of fatigue growth in a plane elastic plate with a center-inclined crack under uniaxial cyclic loading are given.     

A numerical analysis of cracks emanating from an elliptical hole in a 2-D elasticity plate

This paper is concerned with the stress intensity factors (SIFs) of cracks emanating from an elliptical hole in an infinite or a finite plate under biaxial loads by using a boundary element method, which consists of the non-singular displacement discontinuity element presented by Crouch and Starfield and the crack-tip displacement discontinuity elements due to the author. In the boundary element implementation the left or the right crack-tip element is placed locally at the corresponding left or right crack tip on top of the constant displacement discontinuity elements that cover the entire crack surface and the other boundaries. A few numerical examples are included to show that the present approach is very efficient and accurate for the calculating the SIFs of crack problems in an infinite or a finite plate. The present numerical results of cracks emanating from an elliptical hole under biaxial loads can reveal the effect of the elliptical aspect ratio and the transverse load on the SIFs.     

内部压力作用下矩形板中源于椭圆孔的分支裂纹应力强度因子的一种数值分析

应用一种边界元方法来研究内部压力作用下矩形板中源于椭圆孔的分支裂纹。该边界元方法由Crouch与Starfied建立的常位移不连续单元和笔者最近提出的裂尖位移不连续单元构成。在该边界元方法的实施过程中,左、右裂尖位移不连续单元分别置于裂纹的左、右裂尖处,而常位移不连续单元则分布于除了裂尖位移不连续单元占据的位置之外的整个裂纹面及其它边界。本数值结果进一步证实这种数值方法对计算有限大板中复杂裂纹的应力强度因子的有效性,同时该数值结果可以揭示裂纹体几何对应力强度因子的影响。     

An effective boundary element method for analysis of crack problems in a plane elastic plate

A simple and effective boundary element method for stress intensity factor calculation for crack problems in a plane elastic plate is presented. The boundary element method consists of the constant displacement discontinuity element presented by Crouch and Starfield and the crack-tip displacement discontinuity elements proposed by YAN Xiangqiao. In the boundary element implementation the left or the right crack-tip displacement discontinuity element was placed locally at the corresponding left or right each crack tip on top of the constant displacement discontinuity elements that cover the entire crack surface and the other boundaries. Test examples (i. e. , a center crack in an infinite plate under tension, a circular hole and a crack in an infinite plate under tension) are included to illustrate that the numerical approach is very simple and accurate for stress intensity factor calculation of plane elasticity crack problems. In addition, specifically, the stress intensity factors of branching cracks emanating from a square hole in a rectangular plate under biaxial loads were analysed. These numerical results indicate the present numerical approach is very effective for calculating stress intensity factors of complex cracks in a 2-D finite body, and are used to reveal the effect of the biaxial loads and the cracked body geometry on stress intensity factors.     

Stress intensity factors for asymmetric branched cracks in plane extension by using crack-tip displacement discontinuity elements

Stress intensity factors are important in the analysis of cracked materials. They are directly related to the fracture propagation and fatigue crack growth criteria. Based on the analytical solution (Crouch, S.L., 1976. Solution of plane elasticity problems by displacement discontinuity method, Int. J. Numer. Methods Eng. 10, pp. 301–343; Crouch, S.L., Starfield, A.M., 1983. Boundary Element Method in Solid Mechanics, with Application in Rock Mechanics and Geological Mechanics, London, Geore Allon and Unwin, Bonton, Sydney) to the problem of a constant discontinuity in displacement over a finite line segment in the x, y plane of an infinite elastic solid, recently, the crack-tip displacement discontinuity element which can be classified as the left and right crack-tip displacement discontinuity elements are developed by the author Yan, X., (in press. A special crack-tip displacement discontinuity element, Mechanics Research Communications) to model the crack-tip fields to more accurately compute the stress intensity factors of cracks in general plane elasticity. In the boundary element implementation the left or the right crack-tip displacement discontinuity element is placed locally at the corresponding left or right crack tip on top of the ordinary non-singular displacement discontinuity elements that cover the entire crack surface and the other boundaries. To prove further the efficiency of the suggested approach and provide more results of the stress intensity factors, in this study, analysis of an asymmetric branched crack bifurcated from a main crack in plane extension is carried out.     

A special crack tip displacement discontinuity element

Based on the analytical solution to the problem of a constant discontinuity in displacement over a finite line segment in the x, y plane of an infinite elastic solid and the note of the crack tip element by Crouch, in the present paper, the special crack tip displacement discontinuity element is developed. Further the analytical formulas for the stress intensity factors of crack problems in general plane elasticity are given. In the boundary element implementation the special crack tip displacement discontinuity element is placed locally at each crack tip on top of the non-singular constant displacement discontinuity elements that cover the entire crack surface. Numerical results show that the displacement discontinuity modeling technique of a crack presented in this paper is very effective.     

双轴载荷作用下源于椭圆孔的分支裂纹的一种边界元分析

利用一种边界元方法来研究双轴载荷作用下无限大板中源于椭圆孔的分支裂纹.该边界元方法由Crouch 与 Starfied 建立的常位移不连续单元和笔者提出的裂尖位移不连续单元构成.在该边界元方法的实施过程中,左、右裂尖位移不连续单元分别置于裂纹的左、右裂尖处,而常位移不连续单元则分布于除了裂尖位移不连续单元占据的位置之外的整个裂纹面及其它边界.文中算例说明本数值方法对计算平面弹性裂纹的应力强度因子是非常有效的.该文对双轴载荷作用下无限大板中源于椭圆孔的分支裂纹的数值结果进一步证实本数值方法对计算复杂裂纹的应力强度因子的有效性,同时该数值结果可以揭示双轴载荷及裂纹体几何对应力强度因子的影响.     

INTERACTION OF THREE PARALLEL CRACKS IN RECTANGULAR PLATE UNDER CYCLIC LOADS

This paper presents a numerical approach for modeling the interaction between multiple cracks in a rectangular plate under cyclic loads. It involves the formulation of fatigue growth of multiple crack tips under ruixed-mode loading and an extension of a hybrid displacement discontinuity method （a boundary element method） to fatigue crack growth analyses. Because of an intrinsic feature of the boundary element method, a general growth problem of multiple cracks can be solved in a single-region formulation. In the numerical simulation, remeshing of existing boundaries is not necessary for each increment of crack extension. Crack extension is conveniently modeled by adding new boundary elements on the incremental crack extension to the previous crack boundaries. As an example, the numerical approach is used to analyze the fatigue growth of three parallel cracks in a rectangular plate. The numerical results illustrate the validation of the numerical approach and can reveal the effect of the geometry of the cracked plate on the fatigue growth.     

Numerical analysis of quasi-static crack branching in brittle solids by a modified displacement discontinuity method

Mechanism of quasi-static crack branching in brittle solids has been analyzed by a modified displacement discontinuity method. It has been assumed that the pre-existing cracks in brittle solids may propagate at the crack tips due to the initiation and propagation of the kink (or wing) cracks. The originated wing cracks will act as new cracks and can be further propagated from their tips according to the linear elastic fracture mechanics (LEFM) theory. The kink displacement discontinuity formulations (considering the linear and quadratic interpolation functions) are specially developed to calculate the displacement discontinuities for the left and right sides of a kink point so that the first and second mode kink stress intensity factors can be estimated. The crack tips are also treated by boundary displacement collocation technique considering the singularity variation of the displacements and stresses near the crack tip. The propagating direction of the secondary cracks can be predicted by using the maximum tangential stress criterion. An iterative algorithm is used to predict the crack propagating path assuming an incremental increase of the crack length in the predicted direction (straight and curved cracks have been treated). The same approach has been used for estimating the crack propagating direction and path of the original and wing cracks considering the special crack tip elements. Some example problems are numerically solved assuming quasi-static conditions. These results are compared with the corresponding experimental and numerical results given in the literature. This comparison validates the accuracy and applicability of the proposed method.     

Kinked crack analysis by a hybridized boundary element/boundary collocation method

In this research a two dimensional displacement discontinuity method (which is a kind of indirect boundary element method) using higher order elements (i.e. a source element with a cubic variation of displacement discontinuities having four sub-elements) is used to obtain the displacement discontinuities along each boundary element. In this paper, three kinds of the higher order boundary elements are used: the ordinary elements, the kink elements and the special crack tip elements.The boundary collocation technique is used for the calculation of the displacement discontinuities at the center of each sub-elements. Again a special boundary collocation technique is used to treat the kinked source elements occur in the crack analysis. Considering the two source elements (each having four sub-elements) joined at a corner (kink point). The collocation points in the cubic element model which are outside of the kink point are moved to the crack kink then the displacement discontinuities on the left and right sides of the kink are calculated. The displacement discontinuities of the kink point are obtained by averaging the corresponding values of its left and right sides. The special crack tip elements are also treated by the boundary displacement collocation technique considering the singularity variation of the displacements and stresses near the crack tip. Some simple example problems are solved numerically by the proposed method. The numerical results are compared with the corresponding results obtained by the previous methods cited in the literature. This comparison shows a very good agreement between the results and verify the accuracy and validity of the proposed method.     

一种新的计算各向异性材料裂纹尖端应力强度因子杂交元法

利用有限元特征分析法研究了平面各向异性材料裂纹端部的奇性应力指数以及应力场和位移场的角分布函数,以此构造了一个新的裂纹尖端单元。文中利用该单元建立了研究裂纹尖端奇性场的杂交应力模型,并结合Hellinger-Reissner变分原理导出应力杂交元方程,建立了求解平面各向异性材料裂纹尖端问题的杂交元计算模型。与四节点单元相结合,由此提出了一种新的求解应力强度因子的杂交元法。最后给出了在平面应力和平面应变下求解裂纹尖端奇性场的算例。算例表明,本文所述方法不仅精度高,而且适应性强。     

Fatigue growth modeling of cracks emanating from a circular hole in infinite plate

This paper presents a numerical approach of fatigue growth analysis of cracks emanating from a hole in infinite elastic plate subjected to remote loads. It involves a generation of Bueckner’s principle and a hybrid displacement discontinuity method (a boundary element method) proposed recently by the senior author of the paper. Because of an intrinsic feature of the boundary element method, a general crack growth problem can be solved in a single region formulation. In the numerical simulation, for each increment of crack extension, remeshing of existing boundaries is not necessary. Crack extension is modeled conveniently by adding new boundary elements on the incremental crack extension to the previous crack boundaries. As an example, fatigue growth process of an inclined crack in an infinite plate under uniaxial cycle load is modeled to illustrate the effectiveness of the numerical approach. In addition, fatigue growth of cracks emanating from a circular hole in infinite elastic plate subjected to remote loads is investigated by using the numerical approach. Many numerical results are given     

层状磁电复合材料界面共线裂纹平面问题分析

本文研究了面内电磁势载荷作用下双层压电压磁复合材料中共线界面裂纹问题．考虑了压电材料的导磁性质和压磁材料的介电性质,引入了界面电位移和磁感强度的连续性条件．利用Fourier 变换得到一组第二类Cauchy 型奇异积分方程．进一步导出了相应问题的应力强度因子、电位移强度因子和磁感强度强度因子的表达式,给出了应力强度因子的数值结果．结果表明电磁载荷会导致界面裂纹尖端I、II 混合型应力奇异性,同时还伴随着电位移和磁感强度的奇异性．比较了双裂纹左右端的应力强度因子,发现在面内极化方向上施加面内磁势载荷时共线裂纹内侧尖端区域的两个法向应力场发生互相干涉增强．     

Displacement discontinuity method for modeling axisymmetric cracks in an elastic half-space

This paper describes a displacement discontinuity method for modeling axisymmetric cracks in an elastic half-space or full space. The formulation is based on hypersingular integral equations that relate displacement jumps and tractions along the crack. The integral kernels, which represent stress influence functions for ring dislocation dipoles, are derived from available axisymmetric dislocation solutions. The crack is discretized into constant-strength displacement discontinuity elements, where each element represents a slice of a cone. The influence integrals are evaluated using a combination of numerical integration and a recursive procedure that allows for explicit integration of hyper- and Cauchy singularities. The accuracy of the solution at the crack tip is ensured by adding corrective stresses across the tip element. The method is validated by a comparison with analytical and numerical reference solutions.     

On the uses of special crack tip elements in numerical rock fracture mechanics

Numerical methods such as boundary element methods are widely used for the stress analysis in solid mechanics. These methods are also used for crack analysis in rock fracture mechanics. There are singularities for the stresses and displacements at the crack tips in fracture mechanics problem, which decrease the accuracy of the numerical results in areas very close to the crack ends. To overcome this, higher order elements and isoperimetric higher order elements have been used. Recently, special crack tip elements have been proposed and used in most of the numerical fracture mechanics models. These elements can drastically increase the accuracy of the results near the crack tips, but in most of the models only one special crack tip element has been used for each crack end. In this study the uses of higher order crack tip elements are discussed and a higher order displacement discontinuity method is used to investigate the effect of these elements on the accuracy of the results in some crack problems. The useful shape functions for two special crack tip elements, are derived and given in the text and appendix for both infinite and semi-infinite plane problems. In this analysis both Mode I and Mode II stress intensity factors are computed . Some example problems are solved and the computed results are compared with the results given in the literature. The numerical results obtained here are in good agreement with those cited in the literature. For the curved crack problem, the strain energy release rate, G can be calculated accurately in the vicinity of the crack tips by using the higher order displacement discontinuity method with a quadratic variation of displacement discontinuity elements and with two special crack tip elements at each crack end.     

巴西圆盘试样中心斜裂纹疲劳扩展轨迹的边界元模拟

提出了一个平面弹性体多裂纹疲劳扩展模型. 它主要涉及到复合型加载情况下多裂纹尖端疲劳扩展的数学模型及杂交位移不连续法(一种边界元法). 在数值模拟中, 对每一裂纹扩展增量分析时,在其先前的边界上增添裂纹扩展增量, 且只对新增添的裂纹扩展增量划分单元, 同时, 按照这种边界元法的实施方法对一些单元特征进行调整, 就可以方便地模拟裂纹扩展. 用这种数值方法模拟了巴西圆盘试样中心斜裂纹疲劳扩展轨迹,数值结果说明了预报模型的有效性, 揭示了裂纹体几何对疲劳扩展的影响.      

受热载荷两相材料界面端应力场的新型有限元分析

基于一种特殊有限元特征分析方法获得两相材料界面端奇异性应力和位移场数值特征解,据此开发了一种新型超级单元模型,用于分析热机耦合载荷作用下两相材料界面端的应力场.与机械载荷作用下超级单元模型的区别在于,该模型在能量泛函中考虑了热机耦合的影响,将应力场分为奇异项和非奇异项,而奇异性项又可分解为热致部分和力致部分.模型的有效性通过了经验解和传统有限元方法的验证;模型可以避免在界面端邻域网格高度加密,提高了计算速度,对于分析多奇异性点应力干涉问题有重要意义.     

Modelling of dynamical crack propagation using time-domain boundary integral equations

We study dynamic antiplane cracks in the time domain by the boundary integral equation method (BIEM) based on the integral equation for displacement discontinuity (or crack opening displacement, COD) as a function of stress on the crack. This displacement discontinuity formulation presents the advantage, with respect to methods developed by Das and others in seismology, that it has to be solved only inside the crack. This BIEM is, however, difficult to implement numerically because of the hypersingularity of the kernel of the integral equation. Hence it is rewritten into a weakly singular form using a regularization technique proposed by Bonnet. The first step, following a method due to Sladek and Sladek, consists in converting the hypersingular integral equation for the displacement discontinuity into an integral equation for the displacement discontinuity and its tangential derivatives (dislocation density distribution); the latter involves a Cauchy type singular kernel. The second step is based on the observation that the hypersingularity is related to the static component of the kernel; the static singularity is then isolated and can be expressed in terms of weakly singular integrals using a result due to Bonnet. Although numerical applications discussed in this paper are all for the antiplane problem, the technique can be applied as well to in-plane crack dynamics.

The BIEM is implemented numerically using continuous linear space-time base functions to model the COD on the crack. In the present scheme the COD gradient interpolation is discontinuous at the element nodes while the integral equations are collocated at the element midpoints. This leads to an overdetermined discrete problem which is solved by standard least-squares methods. We use the dynamic BIEM to study a set of problems that appear in earthquake source dynamics, including the spontaneous dynamic crack propagation for a very simple rupture criterion. The numerical results compare favorably with the few exact solutions that are available. Then we demonstrate that difficulties experienced with finite difference simulations of spontaneous crack dynamics can be removed with the use of BIEM. The results are improved by the use of singular crack tip elements.     

改进型扩展比例边界有限元法

结合了扩展有限元法(extended finite elementmethods,XFEM)和比例边界有限元法(scaled boundary finite elementmethods,SBFEM)的主要优点,提出了一种改进型扩展比例边界有限元法(improvedextended scaled boundary finite elementmethods,$i$XSBFEM),为断裂问题模拟提供了一条新的途径.类似XFEM,采用两个正交的水平集函数表征材料内部裂纹面,并基于水平集函数判断单元切割类型;将被裂纹切割的单元作为SBFE的子域处理,采用SBFEM求解单元刚度矩阵,从而避免了XFEM中求解不连续单元刚度矩阵需要进一步进行单元子划分的缺陷;同时,借助XFEM的主要思想,将裂纹与单元边界交点的真实位移作为单元结点的附加自由度考虑,赋予了单元结点附加自由度明确的物理意义,可以直接根据位移求解结果得出裂纹与单元边界交点的位移;对于含有裂尖的单元,选取围绕裂尖单元一圈的若干层单元作为超级单元,并将此超级单元作为SBFE的一个子域求解刚度矩阵,超级单元内部的结点位移可通过SBFE的位移模式求解得到,应力强度因子可基于裂尖处的奇异位移(应力)直接获得,无需借助其他的数值方法.最后,通过若干数值算例验证了建议的$i$XSBFEM的有效性,相比于常规XFEM,$i$XSBFEM的基于位移范数的相对误差收敛性较好;采用$i$XSBFEM通过应力法和位移法直接计算得到的裂尖应力强度因子均与解析解吻合\较好.