International Journal of Thermal Sciences 136 (2019) 379–388

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International Journal of Thermal Sciences

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijts

An interaction integral method for calculating heat flux intensity factor with T
the XFEM
Huachao Denga, Bo Yana,∗, Honghong Sub, Xiaomin Zhanga, Xin Lvc
a
College of Aerospace Engineering, Chongqing University, Chongqing, 400044, China
b
Center for Mechanics and Materials, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China
c
College of Civil Engineering, Chongqing University, Chongqing, 400044, China

ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT

Keywords: The JT integral is defined to extract the heat flux intensity factor (HFIF), which is used to describe the singularity
JT integral of heat flux near the tip of a crack, and the path-independence of the JT integral is theoretically proven. Based on
HFIF the JT integral, the relationship between the HFIF and an interaction integral is established through introducing
Path-independence auxiliary field function. The extended finite element method (XFEM), which enriches the standard finite element
Interaction integral
approximation by additional functions, is utilized to solve the temperature field of a cracked structure under
XFEM
specified thermal boundary condition. Numerical examples of cracked plates respectively with an edge crack and
a center crack are used to verify the presented method, and the method is also used to investigate the HFIF near
the tip of an inclined crack and the interaction effect of two cracks on the HFIF. The presented method provides a
foundation for the investigation into the crack propagation behavior of a structure under thermo-mechanical
loading.

1. Introduction
High-temperature materials and structures, such as thermal barrier
coatings, have been widely used in modern engineering applications
[1–3]. However, some defects, such as cracks, voids and inclusions,
often arise in these kinds of materials and structures under high-tem-
perature condition or during fabricating process. It is known that the
heat flux and temperature gradient near the tip of a crack behave the
singularity, which may affect the behavior of crack propagation and
failure in the structures under thermo-mechanical loading. The HFIF is
introduced to describe the strength of singularity at the crack tip, and it
needs to be investigated for the understanding of thermal behavior of
high-temperature materials and structures.
The singularity of temperature gradient near the crack tip of a
cracked plate subjected to uniform heat flow has been investigated by
some authors since the work of Sih et al. [4]. Chao et al. [5] researched
interface crack between dissimilar anisotropic media and obtained the
analytical solution of two-dimensional steady-state heat conduction
problem. Chao and Shen [6] studied heat conduction of curvilinear
cracks in bounded dissimilar materials and presented the analytical
solution of heat flux near the crack tip in an infinite plate. To char-
acterize the singularity of heat flux near a crack tip, the generalized flux
intensity factors (GFIFs), which are the coefficients of the terms in
asymptotic expansion of the heat flux in the vicinity of the singular
point, have been introduced and systematically studied by a general
method based on the complementary weak formulation [7,8]. Arad
et al. [9] presented a simple boundary method to compute the GFIFs
with the singular solution of two-dimensional elliptic boundary value
problem. Zhou et al. [10] developed a finite element discretized sym-
plectic method to solve the two-dimensional steady-state heat con-
duction in composite structures with singularity, based on which the
GFIFs were determined. Hu et al. [11] constructed a symplectic ana-
lytical singular element to study the steady-state thermal conduction
near the crack terminating at the interface between two media, and
they [12] further obtained the analytical symplectic eigen solution of
steady-state thermal conduction in multi-materials with cracks and
solved the GFIFs.
In the aforementioned studies, the GFIFs were usually calculated
using a series of terms of the asymptotic expansion of the heat flux near
the singular points. However, in the thermo-mechanical analysis of a
structure with cracks, only the first term of the asymptotic expansion of
the heat flux near the singular point, which is defined as the HFIF, was
usually considered. To simulate the heat conduction of a cracked
structure with singularity, the XFEM can be employed. By means of the
XFEM, Duflot [13] analyzed thermal fracture of a cracked plate, and
Bouhala et al. [14] modeled the crack propagation in thermo-

∗
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: boyan@cqu.edu.cn (B. Yan).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijthermalsci.2018.09.022
Received 17 April 2018; Received in revised form 20 July 2018; Accepted 16 September 2018
1290-0729/ © 2018 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.
H. Deng et al. International Journal of Thermal Sciences 136 (2019) 379–388

anisotropic elastic materials. Bui and his co-workers [15–19] in- KT can be used to express the temperature and heat flux as [7]
vestigated the transient thermal dynamic responses of functionally
KT
graded piezoelectric materials with cracks under thermal shock and T = 2r sin
(1)
2
coupled electromechanical loading with the XFEM. Zamani and Eslami
[20] employed the XFEM to simulate the dynamic response of a two- KT
Q1 = sin
dimensional cracked plate under transient thermo-mechanical load and 2r 2 (2)
the dynamic thermal stress intensity factors (SIFs) were extracted by
means of interaction integral. Using the XFEM, Stapór [21] studied two- KT
Q2 = cos
dimensional transient heat conduction problems, in which the thermal 2r 2 (3)
conductivity and heat capacity of the material are dependent on tem- where KT = Q a cos ; the subscripts 1 and 2 denote the component in
perature and the phase change is taken into account. In addition, the x and y direction, respectively; λ is the thermal conductivity of the
XFEM has been improved and utilized to study the SIFs of homogeneous material and r and θ are the polar coordinates in the local crack-tip
and bi-material V-notched structures [22,23], the hydraulic fracturing coordinate system with the origin at the crack tip as shown in Fig. 1(a).
phenomenon in rock mass [24], and the static cohesive crack growth in
two-dimensional concrete structures [25]. Recently, the adaptive XFEM 2.2. JT integral and path-independence
was proposed and employed to model three dimensional problems with
inclusions and voids, extract SIFs of straight and curved planar cracks In fracture mechanics, the path-independent J integral is defined
and simulate singular stress fields [26–28]. This method can be helpful and the interaction integral technique is used to extract SIFs of a
to improve the accuracy without a fine mesh for the whole domain. cracked structure. Similar to the J integral, an integral known as the JT
Moreover, a new XFEM with the extended consecutive-interpolation integral is now introduced to extract the HFIF of the heat flux near a
quadrilateral element was developed to analyze linear elastic fracture crack tip. Before defining the JT integral, the J integral in linear elastic
mechanics, crack propagation, transient dynamic SIFs and dynamic fracture mechanics is briefly presented here. As shown in Fig. 1(b), an
thermo-elastic fracture problems [29–32], and this method may be used area in the vicinity of the crack tip enclosed by a close path, which
to analyze heat conduction of cracked structure with singularity. consists of contours 1, 2 , 3 and 4 , is defined, and a local crack-tip
The HFIF, which is the coefficient of the first term in the asymptotic coordinate system x-y with the origin at the crack tip is set up. The J
expansion of the heat flux near a crack tip, can be utilized to char- integral is defined as [33]
acterize the singularity of the heat flux and temperature gradient. In
this paper, the JT integral for the singularity of heat flux near a crack tip J = lim (W ij ui,1) nj ds
(4)
1j
0 2
is defined firstly and an interaction integral method to extract the HFIF
2

based on the JT integral and the XFEM is originally presented, and some
numerical examples are analyzed to illustrate the correctness and effi-
ciency of the developed method. The method presented in this paper
can be further employed to investigate crack propagation behavior of a
structure under thermo-mechanical loading.
which is the path-independent energy quantity related to the energy
release from crack growth. In Eq. (4), W = ij d ij is the strain energy
density, ui , ij and ij denote the components of the displacement, strain
and stress respectively; ij is the Kronecker delta, nj is the outward
normal vector of contour 2 .
Similar to the J integral, the JT integral is now defined as

2. Interaction integral method for HFIF JT = lim (W Qj T ,1) nj ds

(5)
1j
2 0 2

2.1. Singularity of heat flux near crack tip where T is the temperature, Qj is the heat flux, and W is defined as

The heat flux and temperature gradient near the crack tip of a two W= Qj dgj (6)
dimensional infinite plate, which behave the singularity, were first
in which gj = T , j is the temperature gradient.
derived by Sih [4]. As shown in Fig. 1(a), a crack of length 2a directed
To prove the path-independence of JT integral, the following in-
at an angle γ with respect to the positive direction of x1 axis is subjected
tegral is defined firstly
to a remote uniform heat flux Q in the negative direction of y1 axis in an
infinite homogeneous medium. = lim (W Qj T ,1) mj ds
1j
(7)
If only the first terms of the asymptotic expansions of temperature
0

and the heat flux near the crack tip are considered, the HFIF noted by where = 1 + 3 2 + 4, mj is the unit vector outward normal to the

Fig. 1. (a) A crack directed at an angle subjected to a remote uniform heat flux Q in infinite medium; (b) Contour integral path and equivalent domain integral.

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corresponding contours, i.e. mj = nj on 1 and mj = nj on 2, and W is g jaux = T ,aux

j (20)
defined as the same in Eq. (6). Eq. (7) can be written as
Qjaux = gjaux (21)
= (W dy T ,1 Qj mj ds ) (8)
Superimposing the actual fields of the cracked structure under
Substituting Eq. (6) into Eq. (8) and utilizing the Green formula, the thermal loading and the auxiliary fields, the JT integral can be written
first integral term in Eq. (8) can be written as as
W dy = Qj gj,1 dA (9) 1
A JT(1,2) = (Qj + Qjaux )(T ,1 + T ,1aux ) (Qj + Q jaux ) gj + g jaux 1j q, j dA
A 2
where A is the area enclosed by path . Due to gj = T , j , the second
integral term of Eq. (8) is (22)

T ,1 Qj mj ds = Qj gj,1 dA which can be decomposed into

A (10)
JT(1,2) = JT(1) + JT(2) + I (1,2) (23)
Substituting Eq. (9) and Eq. (10) into Eq. (8), it is obtained that
In Eq. (23), is the JT integral corresponding to the actual fields
JT(1)
= (W dy T ,1 Qj mj ds ) = 0 (11) determined by Eq. (18), JT(2) is given by
It is shown in Fig. 1 that dy = 0 , Q1 = 0 and Q2 = 0 on the crack JT(2) = (Qj auxT ,1aux W aux 1j ) q, j dA (24)
surfaces 3 and 4 , that is A

and I (1,2) , known as the interaction integral, is given by

(W Qj T ,1) mj ds = (W Qj T ,1) mj ds = 0
1j 1j
(12)
{ (Q T 1
} q dA
3 4
aux
I (1,2) = j + Qjaux T ,1) (Qi giaux + Qiaux gi ) 1j
By means of Eq. (11) and Eq. (12), we have A
,1
2 ,j
(25)

= (W 1j Qj T ,1) mj ds It is noted that in Eq. (25)

= (W 1j Qj T ,1) mj ds (W 1j Qj T ,1) mj ds Qi giaux = gi giaux = Qiaux gi (26)
1 2
=0 (13)
Substituting Eq. (26) into Eq. (25), the interaction integral is finally
which means written as

(W Qj T ,1) mj ds = (W Qj T ,1) mj ds I (1,2) = {(Qj T ,1aux + Qjaux T ,1) Qi giaux 1j} q ,j dA (27)
1
1j
2
1j
(14) A

Based on the definition of JT integral by Eq. (5) and Eq. (14), it is

proven that the JT integral is path-independent. 2.4. Extraction of HFIF

2.3. Auxiliary fields and interaction integral Based on the path-independence of JT integral and the expansions of
the temperature and heat flux near crack tip, the relationship between
To convert JT integral into an equivalent domain integral, the fol- JT integral and KT can be determined by an arbitrary integral path. For
lowing contour integral is defined the sake of simplification, a circular path 2 , as shown in Fig. 2, is
chosen as the integral path.
= lim (W Qj T ,1) mj qds By the definition of JT integral in Eq. (5), it can be rewritten as
0
1j
(15)
Here, q is a weight function, which is defined to be unity inside the JT = (W Qj T ,1) nj ds = W dy T ,1 Qj nj ds
1j
(28)
domain enclosed by path and zero outside the domain. Taking 2
2 2
0
leads to

lim = lim (W 1j Qj T ,1) mj qds

2 0 2 0 1+ 3+ 4

(W 1j Qj T ,1) nj qds
2
(16)
It is noted that q = 0 on 1, and crack surfaces 3 and 4 are assumed
to be adiabatic. Comparing Eq. (15) and Eq. (5), Eq. (16) becomes

JT = lim = lim (W Qj T ,1) mj qds

(17)
1j
2 0 2 0

Applying the divergence theorem to Eq. (17) and considering the

value of q, it is obtained that

JT = (Qj T ,1 W 1j ) q, j dA (18)
A

This integral is the equivalent domain integral of the JT integral

defined by Eq. (5).
To extract the HFIF, the following auxiliary fields including tem-
perature T , temperature gradient g jaux , and heat flux Qjaux are introduced
KTaux
T aux = 2r sin Fig. 2. Circular integral path in the vicinity of crack.
2 (19)

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Considering ds = r d and dy = r cos d , Eq. (28) becomes finite element, the additional degree of freedom enriched by crack tip
enrichment function B (x ) , and the additional degree of freedom en-
JT = r W cos d r (Q1 n1 + Q2 n2 ) T ,1 d (29) riched by the Heaviside enrichment function H (x ). The crack tip en-
richment function utilized to account for the singularity near the crack
Using Eq. (1), the derivatives of T with respective to x and y are
tip [15] is given by
obtained as
T T r T KT B (x ) = r sin
= + = sin 2 (42)
x r x x 2r 2 (30)
and the Heaviside enrichment function utilized to model the dis-
T T r T KT
= + = cos continuity across the crack face is defined as
y r y y 2r 2 (31)
+1 (x ) > 0
Substituting Qj = gj and gj = T , j into Eq. (6) and considering Eq. H (x ) =
1 (x ) < 0 (43)
(30) and Eq. (31), it is known that
KT2 where (x ) is the signed distance function defined from the crack sur-
W= Qj dgj = face, and the enriched nodes Ntip and Ncut are shown in Fig. 3(a).
4 r (32)
The standard XFEM employs the topological enrichment. The crack
The first term on the right side of Eq. (29) becomes
tip enrichment function only enriches the nodes belong to the element
KT2 including the crack tip, i.e. crack tip element, as shown in Fig. 3(a).
r W cos d = r cos d =0 However, those elements with only some of enriched nodes, called
4 r (33)
blending elements shown in Fig. 3(a), may produce unwanted terms
and the second term, considering Eq. (30) and Eq. (31), becomes into the approximation that may degrade the convergence of the XFEM
KT2 significantly [34,35], and some contributions have been made to get rid
r (Q1 n1 + Q2 n2) T ,1 d =
(34) of the blending elements. The corrected XFEM for heat conduction can
2
be expressed as [36]
Substituting Eq. (33) and Eq. (34) into Eq. (29), the relationship
between JT integral and KT is given by T (x ) = i Ns
Ni (x ) Ti + j Ntip
Nj (x ) R (x )[B (x ) B (x j )] aj

KT2 + k Ncut
Nk (x )[H (x ) H (xk )] bk (44)
JT =
2 (35)
in which, the Ramp function R (x ) is defined as
Similarly, superimposing the actual and auxiliary fields, it can be
obtained from Eq. (35) that R (x ) = Ni (x )
i NR (45)
2
JT(1,2) = (KT + KTaux ) = JT(1) + JT(2) + I (1,2) For the sake of clarity, the set of enriched nodes Ntip , Ncut and NR in
2 (36)
the corrected XFEM are shown in Fig. 3(b).
where It is worth noting that the corrected XFEM employs the geometrical
JT(1) = KT2 enrichment. Not only the nodes belong to the crack tip element but also
2 (37) the nodes belong to the elements adjacent to the crack tip element are
2 enriched by the crack tip enrichment function. For the elements ad-
JT(2) = KTaux jacent to the crack tip element, with the aid of Ramp function, functions
2 (38)
could build a partition of unity here and the crack tip enrichment
I (1,2) = KT KTaux function can be represented exactly, and the blending elements with
(39)
nodes enriched by crack tip enrichment function can be avoided. And
Letting KTaux = cos in Eq. (39), it is obtained that the shifted enrichment functions B (x ) B (xj ) and H (x ) H (xk ) make
Ti of an enriched node i be the physical solution of the nodal tem-
I (1,2)
KT = perature. Thus, the shifted Heaviside function H (x ) H (xk ) can avoid
cos (40)
the unwanted terms in those blending elements with nodes enriched by
If I (1,2) is known, KT can be extracted by Eq. (40). The computational Heaviside function. Consequently, in the corrected XFEM, the blending
procedure for the interaction integral I (1,2) based on the XFEM is pre- elements can be avoided by the Ramp function and shifted enrichment
sented in Section 3. functions. In this study, the corrected XFEM is used to investigate the
It is noted that the method presented in this paper can be extended heat flux singularity near the crack tip.
to a three dimensional problem, in which the JT integral can be defined
by a surface integration around the crack tip and surfaces. 3.2. Extraction of HFIF based on numerical results

3. XFEM for heat transfer with flux singularity With the XFEM, the temperature field of a cracked structure under
certain boundary condition can be solved, based on which the dis-
3.1. XFEM approximation tributions of temperature gradient and heat flux in the domain can be
determined.
The basic idea of the XFEM is to enrich the standard finite element Letting KTaux = cos in Eq. (19), we have
approximation by additional functions based on the partition of unity to
model the discontinuities. The standard XFEM for heat conduction can cos
T aux = 2r sin
be expressed as: 2 (46)

T (x ) = Ni (x ) Ti + Nj (x ) B (x ) aj + Nk (x ) H (x ) bk Substituting it into Eq. (20), and using Eq. (30) and Eq. (31), the
i Ns j Ntip k Ncut (41) auxiliary temperature gradient g jaux is obtained as
cos
in which, Ni (x ) is the standard finite element shape functions; Ti , aj , and g1aux = T ,1aux = sin
bk are respectively the nodal degree of freedom defined in a standard 2r 2 (47)

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Fig. 3. (a) Standard XFEM enrichment scheme; (b) Corrected XFEM enrichment scheme.

integral in fracture mechanics [33]. Finally, KT is extracted by Eq. (40)

as

I (1,2)
KT = , (40)
cos

4. Numerical examples and discussions

In this section, the heat conduction problems of cracked plates re-

spectively with an edge crack and a center crack are firstly used to
verify the method presented in this paper, and the method is then used
to analyze the HFIF near the tip of an inclined crack and the effect of the
interaction of two cracks on the HFIF.

4.1. Validation of interaction integral method

An edge-cracked square plate is shown in Fig. 4. The geometric

parameters are w = 5, h = 5, a = 5, and the thermal conductivity is
assumed to be 2. Both the left and right edges of the plate are assumed
to be adiabatic, the temperature at bottom edge is T = 0 , and the heat
flux at top edge is Qy = 1. It is noted that the crack surfaces are assumed
to be adiabatic.
To verify the method presented in this paper, the temperature field
is analyzed by the XFEM and finite element method (FEM). The mesh
Fig. 4. Edge-cracked plate with temperature and heat flux boundary condition. models of the XFEM and FEM are shown in Fig. 5, and regular and
irregular mesh for the XFEM analysis are employed to discretize the
model at the same time. In the XFEM model, the crack tip locates at the
cos center of an element, however, the mesh must conform the crack sur-
g2aux = T ,2aux = cos
2r 2 (48) faces in the FEM. The mesh convergence has been checked for the
XFEM and FEM models.
The auxiliary heat flux is then determined by Eq. (21) as
The temperature distributions of the edge-cracked plate obtained by
cos the XFEM and the ABAQUS software are shown in Fig. 6. It can be seen
Q1aux = sin
2r 2 (49) that the results obtained by the XFEM with regular and irregular mesh
are consistent with those obtained by FEM.
cos
Q2aux = cos In the local crack-tip coordinate system, variations of temperature
2r 2 (50)
along the upper and lower crack surfaces obtained by the XFEM and the
ABAQUS are shown in Fig. 7. It is shown that the temperatures on the
Based on these results, the interaction integral I (1,2) can be de-
upper and lower crack surfaces are much different due to the adiabatic
termined by Eq. (27) as
condition on crack surfaces, and the temperature on the upper crack
I (1, 2) = {(Qj T ,1aux + Qjaux T ,1) Qi giaux 1j } q ,j dA , (27) surface is higher than that of the lower surface because heat flux is
A
specified on the top edge of the plate. On the other hand, the results
This integration can be carried out with the similar method of J obtained by the three models are very close, which demonstrates the

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Fig. 5. XFEM and FEM mesh models of the edge-cracked plate: (a) XFEM model
discretized by regular mesh with 6561 elements; (b) XFEM model discretized by Fig. 6. Temperature distribution of the edge-cracked plate: (a) Temperature
irregular mesh with 6604 elements; (c) FEM model discretized with 6832 ele- distribution by XFEM with regular mesh; (b) Temperature distribution by XFEM
ments. with irregular mesh; (c) Temperature distribution by FEM.

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Fig. 9. Variation of JT versus R / a in the case of the edge-cracked plate.

Fig. 7. Variations of temperature along crack surfaces of the edge-cracked

plate.

Fig. 10. Center-cracked plate with temperature and heat flux boundary con-
dition.
Fig. 8. Variations of heat flux Qy with x (y = 0) ahead crack tip of the edge-
cracked plate.
To verify the interaction integral method for calculating the HFIF, a
center-cracked plate shown in Fig. 10, in which w = 5, h = 5, is nu-
efficiency of the XFEM.
merically studied. The material and the boundary condition of this
Moreover, the variations of heat flux component Qy with x (y = 0)
problem are the same as the edge-cracked problem in above. Due to the
ahead of crack tip by the three models are shown in Fig. 8. It can be
symmetry of the model, only half of the model is discretized with 5151
seen that the XFEM model, which enriches the standard finite element
elements and the adiabatic boundary condition is specified on the
approximation with crack tip branch function, is better to characterize
symmetric plane.
the singularity of heat flux near a crack tip.
The analytical solution of the HFIF of an infinite plate with center
It is known that the extraction of KT depends on the path-in-
crack is KTref = Q y a [6], which is used to normalize the HFIF of this
dependence of JT integral, which is theoretically proven in Section 2.2.
problem, i.e. KT = KT /KTref . The variations of KT versus a/ w with regular
The path-independence of JT integral can be illustrated numerically. Let
mesh are shown in Fig. 11. It can be seen that when the crack length is
R be the radius of integral circular path, and different ratios of circle
very small comparing with the dimension of the plate, which is closed
radius R to crack length a are chosen to reflect path difference. Varia-
to the infinite plate case, KT tends to be 1.0.
tions of JT with R/ a determined by the XFEM and FEM are shown in
Now change the heat flux boundary condition of the top edge of the
Fig. 9. It is known that the largest relative errors between those results
center-cracked plate, as shown in Fig. 10, to a specified temperature
is 0.43%, and this means the value of JT is independent on the radius of
Ttop. The HFIF at the crack tip versus the specified temperature Ttop on
integral path.

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H. Deng et al.
Fig. 11. Variations of KT versus a/ w of center-cracked plate determined by
XFEM.
Fig. 12. Variations of KT near crack tip of center-cracked plate versus specified
temperature Ttop .
the top edge is shown in Fig. 12, from which it is known that the
magnitude of the HFIF increases with the temperature Ttop.
4.2. Inclined-cracked plate
A plate with an inclined crack subjected to uniform heat flux is
shown in Fig. 13. The geometric parameters are w = 5, h = 5, and the
thermal conductivity is assumed to be 2. The temperature at bottom
edge is T = 0 , and the heat flux at top edge is Qy = 1. It is noted that the
crack surfaces, left edge and right edge of the plate are assumed to be
adiabatic.
The analytical solution of the HFIF of an infinite plate with an in-
clined crack is KTref = Q y a cos [7], which is used to normalize the
HFIF of this problem, i.e. KT = KT /KTref . The variations of KT versus a/ w
in the cases of two different inclined angles are shown in Fig. 14. It can
be seen that when the crack length is very small comparing with the
dimension of the plate, which is closed to the infinite plate case, KT
tends to be 1.0.
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International Journal of Thermal Sciences 136 (2019) 379–388
Fig. 13. Inclined-cracked plate with heat flux and temperature boundary con-
ditions.
Fig. 14. Variations of KT versus a/ w in the cases of different inclined-crack
angle.
Now change the heat flux boundary condition of the top edge of the
inclined-cracked plate, as shown in Fig. 13, to a specified temperature
Ttop in the case of a = 2. The variations of KT at crack tip versus Ttop in
the cases of two different inclined angles is shown in Fig. 15, from
which it can be seen that the absolute value of KT increases with the
specified top edge temperature Ttop and decreases with the crack in-
clined angle .
4.3. Disturbance between two cracks
The method developed in this paper is now used to study the dis-
turbance between two parallel cracks and two collinear cracks on the
HFIF of cracked plates. A plate with two parallel cracks is shown in
Fig. 16, in which w = 5, h = 7.5, a = 1. The thermal conductivity and
the boundary condition are the same as the edge-cracked problem in
Section 4.1. Due to the symmetry of the model, only half of the model is
discretized and the adiabatic boundary condition is specified on the
H. Deng et al.
Fig. 15. Variations of KT versus Ttop in the cases of different inclined angle.
Fig. 16. Plate with two parallel center cracks with temperature and heat flux
boundary condition.
symmetric plane. In the XFEM modeling, the plate is discretized by
regular mesh with 5151 elements.
The variations of the normalized HFIF KT = KT /(Qy a ) at the tip of
crack A with c /w for different b/ a are shown Fig. 17. In all of the cases,
as the distance c between the two cracks tends to large enough, KT tends
to 1.0, which means the disturbance between the two cracks decreases
with their distance. On the other hand, it can be seen from Fig. 17 that
the value of b/ a has significant effect on the KT . When b/ a 1, KT
varies monotonically with c /w , and when b/ a < 1, KT decreases firstly
and then increases with c /w .
A plate with two collinear cracks is shown in Fig. 18, in which
w = 7.5, h = 2.5, a = 0.5. The material and the boundary condition are
the same as the edge-cracked problem in Section 4.1.
Variations of the normalized HFIF KT = KT /(Qy a ) at the both tips
of crack A with c /w under different b/ a are shown in Fig. 19. It may be
found that for crack B with certain length, the absolute values of KT at
both tips of crack A decrease monotonically with c /w , and the absolute
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International Journal of Thermal Sciences 136 (2019) 379–388
Fig. 17. Variations of KT at the tip of crack A with c / w for different b/ a .
Fig. 18. Plate with two collinear cracks with specified temperature and heat
flux boundary condition.
values of KT at right tip of crack A are always larger than those at the
left tip of crack A.
5. Conclusions
An interaction integral method is presented to calculate the HFIF
near the tip of a crack based on numerical results from XFEM. It is
concluded that: (1) The JT integral to extract HFIF near crack tip of a
cracked structure with heat flux singularity is firstly defined, and the
integral is path-independent, which is proven theoretically and nu-
merically. (2) Using the interaction integral of the auxiliary and actual
fields determined by the XFEM, the HFIF at a crack tip can be accu-
rately extracted, and the method is verified by numerical examples of
heat conduction problems of edge-cracked, center-cracked and in-
clined-cracked plates. (3) The presented method provides a foundation
for the numerical simulation of crack propagation in a structure under
H. Deng et al.
Fig. 19. Variations of KT at both tips of crack A versus c / w with various b/ a . (a) KT at left tip of crack A. (b) KT at right tip of crack A.
thermo-mechanical load, and it can be extended to study three di-
mensional cracked problems with heat flux singularity.
Acknowledgements
This work is sponsored by the National Natural Science Foundation
of China (No. 11572060 and No. 11872130).
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