SMART Crack-Growth Assumptions and Limitations

General Assumptions and Limitations

Review the following for the use of the SMART Crack Growth feature:

Only supports Static Structural analyses.

Supports 3-D crack growth only.

Supports Mixed Mode Crack Growth for Mode I and II only. If using J-Integral as Crack Growth Criterion, then
only straight (Mode I) crack growth is
supported.

Supports higher order tetrahedron mesh. To use it with a hex-dominant base mesh (for Arbitrary Crack and
Semi-Elliptical Crack objects only) you need to set the Fracture object property Re-mesh
Hex-dominant to
Tetrahedral to On. This will re-mesh the bodies scoped to the Arbitrary Crack and
Semi-Elliptical Crack
objects to tetrahedrons when Generate All Crack Meshes (right-click) menu option is
executed.

Material behavior is assumed to be linear elastic isotropic.

Fatigue crack growth is based on Paris' Law.

Plasticity effects, nonlinear geometry effects, load-compression effects, and crack-tip-closure effects are not
considered.

Supports the Bonded, No-Separation, Frictionless, Rough, and Frictional contact Type property options with
CONTA174 and TARGE170 when they remain outside the remeshing zone during the simulation. SMART does
not support any
contact element inside the remeshing zone.

Function based loads and tabular loads with time as independent variable are not supported for fatigue
crack growth analysis.

Node- and element-based components are not maintained after remeshing. Therefore, Ansys recommends
that you use the Tabular Data
option of the Define By property to define the load in a multi-step analysis.

Does not currently support Point Mass or Distributed Mass.

Only supports the following Imported Loads:

Imported Pressure

Imported Force

Imported Displacement

Imported Body Temperature

 Imported Initial Stress

Does not currently support Hydrostatic Pressure.

Either SIFS or J-Integral fracture parameter can be computed in one solution.

Restarting the analysis is currently not supported.

When the crack grows to the point of breaking the structural component apart, all solution results are set to
zero and no crack-front information is
reported.

Graphics Limitation: During your analysis, if your SMART crack grows from one body to another body, you
need to scope the
corresponding bodies to a Material Assignment object and assign them with the same
material using Material
Name property. This in turn facilitates the proper display of the crack front contour
result in the graphics window.

Postprocessing Limitation: The Crack Extension probe displays the sum of the crack extension increments
from
only those substeps in which crack extension increment information has been saved. That is, if crack
results are not written for each specified
Substep, as is the case when using the OUTRES,CINT,2 command
snippet in a Static Structural environment, where every second substep is written, the application does not
display the entire crack
extension for the Crack Extension probe.

Multiple SMART Crack Growth Requirements

Make sure of the following setting when you have specified multiple SMART Crack Growth objects:

Each crack specified on the model must be associated with an unique SMART Crack Growth object (1:1
ratio).

The Crack Growth Option property must be set to the same option (Fatigue or Static) for
all SMART Crack
Growth objects.

The Failure Criteria Option property must be set to the same option (SIFS or J-Integral)
when the Crack
Growth Option property is set to Static for all SMART Crack Growth objects.

The Crack Growth Methodology property must be set to the same option (Life Cycle Prediction or Cycle By
Cycle) when the Crack Growth Option property is set to Fatigue for all SMART Crack
Growth objects.

Note:  The SMART Crack Growth feature uses local re-meshing and adaptation techniques and
therefore has restrictions for the crack extension
size.

For example, the feature might modify your entries in the Min Increment of Crack Extension or Max
Increment of Crack
Extension properties for either Crack Growth Methodology, either Life Cycle
Prediction or Cycle By
Cycle.
When the Crack Growth Methodology property is set to Life Cycle Prediction and the Max
Increment of Crack
Extension manual entry is larger than 1.5 times of the element size at the crack
front, the Max Increment of Crack Extension value is
modified to 1.5 times of the element size.
Similarly, if the manual entry for the Min Increment of Crack Extension is smaller than 0.25 times of
the
element size at the crack tip, the Min Increment of Crack Extension value is modified to 0.25
times of the element size.

When the Crack Growth Methodology property is set to Cycle By Cycle, and you enter a number of
cycles that is too
large or too small, then the algorithm automatically re-defines the number of cycles
according to the crack front element size. However, the Min Increment of
Crack Extension, the Max
Increment of Crack Extension, and the Increment Number of Cycles property values may not be
satisfied during the solution to ensure a robust mesh change.

Contains proprietary and confidential information of ANSYS, Inc. and its subsidiaries and affiliates.

Release 2022 R1 - © ANSYS, Inc. All rights reserved.