CRACKS CRACKSCKS

Menu: CRACKS

Description: This menu contains commands used for defining cracks for a J-integral or VCCT
evaluation.
The concept of a crack is a crack tip for 2-D and a crack front in 3-D. For each crack
you select if a J-integral calculation or a VCCT calculation is to be performed. The
J-integral option corresponds to the Marc option LORENZI while VCCT corresponds
to the VCCT option. Both are related to the energy release rate of the crack.

J-INTEGRAL
For 2-D, the J-integral is defined as a line integral along a path surrounding the crack
tip. In the method used by MSC.Marc, this integral is transformed into an area integral
where the area to be integrated over is the one enclosed by the line integration path.
Only a part of this area is actually used for the integration, usually the outermost ring
of elements. In this way, only results values at a distance from the crack tip are used
and more accurate results can be obtained for the J-integral.
To identify the integration area, the user defines a list of nodes inside the elements that
are used for the integration. These nodes define the RIGID REGION which the menus
below refer to. Only elements that are connected to a node in the rigid region
contribute to the J-integral value calculated. This does not include elements with all
nodes in the rigid region. The term rigid region comes from the fact that you can
evaluate the J-integral by shifting the nodes in the rigid region and calculate the change
in strain energy in the elements connected to a node in the rigid region.
For 3-D, the line integral becomes a surface integral over a surface surrounding the
crack front (or a part of the crack front). The area integral becomes a volume integral
and the rigid region is similarly defined as a list of nodes. By choosing the rigid region
as a thin disk of nodes perpendicular to the crack front, where the disk contains one
node along the crack front, you can obtain local values of the J-integral along a crack
front. The automatic search routines for the rigid regions are designed to create this
type of rigid regions.
Shell elements are not supported for the J-integral.

VCCT
For VCCT the energy release rate is evaluated using forces and displacements around
the crack tip. There is no extra input needed apart from the crack tip or front for the
energy release rate calculation.
The VCCT option supports crack propagation. It can be defined by releasing a
predefined tied interface or through global remeshing. In the global remeshing case the
user does not need to define the crack growth path, it comes as a part of the solution.
The crack growth can be done as either fatigue style or direct growth. In the direct
grow case the crack grows whenever the calculated energy release rate is larger than
the user specified crack growth resistance (fracture toughness).
The energy release rate calculation supports all solid and shell elements except higher
order tetrahedral elements. The released tying style of crack growth supports all the
mentioned element types, while remeshing is supported for 2D solid elements.