Traditional Methods in

Computational Fracture
Mechanics
By:
Adugna Fikadu
&
Edosa Kefiyalew
Out lines

o Stress and displacement matching

o Elemental crack advance
o Contour integration
o Virtual crack extension
o Stiffness derivative formulation
o Continuum approach
Introduction
o These methods are most likely traditional
o Most of them have been replaced by more recent techniques which are more
accurate and efficient.
o Those techniques can be implemented with either finite element or boundary
element methods.
o For instance, stiffness derivative approach based on finite element stiffness
matrix.
o Thus, is not compatible with boundary element analysis
Stress and Displacement Matching…
Stress or point matching
o It deals with inferring the stress intensity factor from the stress or displacement
fields in the body.
o For a cracked body subjected to pure Mode I loading, on the crack plane (θ = 0),
KI is related to the stress normal to the crack plane as follows:

o The stress-intensity factor can be inferred against distance from the crack tip,
and extrapolating to r = 0
o The stress matching method requires a high degree of mesh refinement to obtain
accurate KI estimates.
Stress and Displacement Matching…
Displacement Matching Method
o Also called energy method.
o Energy methods compute the energy release rate in the body and relate G to stress
intensity.
o KI can be estimated from a similar extrapolation of crack-opening displacement
𝒖𝒚

For plain strain For plain stress

Stress and Displacement Matching…
o Displacement Matching Method give more accurate estimates of KI than Stress
Matching Method.
o Because stresses are singular as r → 0 but displacements are proportional to near
the crack tip.

o Fig: Local coordinate system for stresses and displacements at the crack tip in a
finite element or boundary element model.
Elemental Crack Advance
o The energy release rate can be inferred from the rate of change in global
potential energy with crack growth.

o If two separate numerical analyses of a given geometry are performed, one with
crack length a and the other with crack length a + Δa

o The energy release rate is given by assuming a 2D body with unit thickness.
Elemental Crack Advance…
o This technique is also more efficient than the point matching methods, since
global energy estimates do not require refined meshes.

o But, multiple solutions are required in this case, while other methods infer the
desired crack tip parameter from a single analysis.

o This may not be a serious shortcoming if the intention is to compute G (or K) as a

function of crack size.
Contour Integration
o The J integral can be evaluated numerically along a contour surrounding the
crack tip. The advantages of this method are:

o it can be applied both to linear and nonlinear problems,

o path independence (in elastic materials) enables the user to evaluate J at a

remote contour,

o numerical accuracy is greater.

o For problems that include path-dependent plastic deformation or thermal

strains, it is still possible to compute J at a remote contour.

o Provides an appropriate correction term (i.e., an area integral) is applied.

Contour Integration…
o For 3D problems, however, the contour integral becomes a surface integral,
which is extremely difficult to evaluate numerically.

o More recent numerical formulations for evaluating J apply an area integration

for 2D problems and a volume integration for 3D problems.

o Area and volume integrals provide much better accuracy than contour and
surface integrals, and are much easier to implement numerically.