Configurational forces in crystal plasticity: an analysis of the influence of grain boundaries on crack driving forces

The theory of configurational forces is applied to standard dissipative materials. As a computational example, the method is used to analyze a crystal plastic material law, which assumes flow in the basal and prismatic slip systems of a hexagonally close packed crystal. The material data mimic titanium. Numerical examples include the driving force on a crack interacting with a grain boundary. A simple algorithm is proposed to treat straight crack growth. It is shown how the configurational force at the crack tip is influenced by the presence of the grain boundary.