Extended meshless method based on partition of unity for solving multiple crack problems

An extended meshless method based on partition of unity was used in this study to simulate multiple cracks. The cracks are implicitly denoted by a jump in the displacement field function, which has nodes that have domains of influence completely segmented by cracks. Nodes whose domains of influence are partially segmented by cracks are extended by the crack tip singularity function. The influence domain of a node is independent of cracks so that the sparsity of the system equations should not be affected by cracks and the computing time should not increase with the effect of the cracks. Additionally, r ^?1/2 singularity can be accurately reproduced at the crack tip. Compared with the modified intrinsic enriched meshless method, our method has a higher computational efficiency and precision. Several numerical examples show that the extended meshless method based on partition of unity is feasible and effective in simulating multiple cracks.