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On three-dimensional modeling of crack growth using partition of unity

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Article in Computers & Structures · December 2010

DOI: 10.1016/j.compstruc.2008.08.010
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Computers and Structures xxx (2008) xxx–xxx
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Computers and Structures

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/compstruc
On three-dimensional modelling of crack growth using partition of unity methods

Timon Rabczuk a, Stéphane Bordas b,*, Goangseup Zi c,1
a
Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Canterbury, New Zealand
b
University of Glasgow, Civil Engineering Department, Rankine Building, G12 8LT Glasgow, UK
c
Department of Civil, Environmental and Architectural Engineering, Korea University, 5 Ga 1, An-Am Dong, Sung-Buk Gu, Seoul 136-701, Republic of Korea
a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t
Article history: This paper reviews different crack tracking techniques in three-dimensions applicable in the context of
Received 11 October 2007 partition of unity methods, especially meshfree methods. Issues such as describing and tracking the crack
Accepted 5 August 2008 surface are addressed. A crack tracking procedure is proposed in detail and implemented in the context of
Available online xxxx
the extended element-free Galerkin method (XEFG). Several three-dimensional cracking examples are
compared to other results from the literature or the experimental data and show good agreement.
Keywords: Ó 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Three-dimensional crack initiation and
growth
Extended element-free Galerkin method
(XEFG)
Extended finite element method (XFEM)
Discontinuous enrichment
Cohesive cracks
Fragmentation
1. Introduction dependence but is computationally expensive. Moreover, errors

are introduced due to the mapping of variables. Besides, certain is-
Nowadays, there exist many numerical methods that are capa- sues related to time and traction continuity still remain [110] in
ble of treating arbitrary crack paths. The simplest way of treating the context of inter-element-separation models.
cracks are so-called element deletion methods. In element deletion Discrete crack modelling with FEM and remeshing is also a via-
methods, the crack is not treated explicitly. Instead, the macro- ble route to cracking in three-dimensions, although the amount of
scopic stresses in the constitutive equations are decayed to zero work in this direction is still limited. The finite element mesh is
once a certain fracture criterion is met. To avoid mesh-dependence, adapted after every crack propagation step. The reader is referred
the dissipative energy in the softening domain is scaled to the frac- to papers by Liang et al. [69], Lilliu and van Mier [70], Coggan
ture energy, see e.g. [6,52]. et al. [33], Curtin [35] and Kawai et al. [65] for more details.
Finite elements coupled with adaptive remeshing have also Enrichment methods based on the decomposition of the solu-
been used [2,37,75,111,125,141]. However, for multiple cracks, tion in a form u þ u ~ where u is typically a finite element solution
the finite element method (FEM) can become very cumbersome and u ~ provides information about the behaviour of the solution
because of the need for remeshing. Additionally, remeshing re- in the form of a global analytical function, are attributed to Mote
quires mapping the internal variables between different meshes, [89], later revisited by Dong [39] and Noor [99] and applied to a
which decreases accuracy for non-linear problems. variety of problems including shear bands and cracks [12,60].
In inter-element-separation methods [25,108,150–152], crack However, these global enrichment methods decrease the sparsity
growth is restricted to element edges and the numerical results of the resulting matrix.
are very sensitive with respect to the size and shape of the under- The development of local enrichment, condensed out at the ele-
lying element mesh. Adaptive remeshing can attenuate mesh- ment level, followed the early global enrichment techniques. Some
of the pioneering work on this is due to Belytschko et al. [11],
among others.
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +44 141 330 4075; fax: +44 141 330 4557. Embedded elements [50,100–103] can handle arbitrary crack
E-mail addresses: Timon.Rabczuk@canterbury.ac.nz (T. Rabczuk), stephane. paths without remeshing. The embedded element method (EFEM)
bordas@alumni.northwestern.edu (S. Bordas), g-zi@korea.ac.kr (G. Zi).
URLs: http://www.lnm.mw.tum.de/Members/rabczuk (T. Rabczuk), http://
is based on an enrichment at the element level such that the appro-
people.civil.gla.ac.uk/~bordas (S. Bordas), http://www.korea.ac.kr/~semlab/ (G. Zi). priate crack kinematics is obtained. Crack opening is assumed to be
1
Tel.: +82 2 3290 3324. piecewise constant though recent studies have shown that it is also
0045-7949/$ - see front matter Ó 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.compstruc.2008.08.010
Please cite this article in press as: Rabczuk T et al., On three-dimensional modelling of crack growth using partition of unity methods,
Comput Struct (2008), doi:10.1016/j.compstruc.2008.08.010
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2 T. Rabczuk et al. / Computers and Structures xxx (2008) xxx–xxx
possible to incorporate linear crack opening into EFEM [71]. One While there are numerous papers on numerical methods for
advantage of the EFEM is that the enrichment can be condensed cracks, there exist only a few paper that are concerned about the
at the element level. Hence, EFEM can be incorporated into com- three-dimensional implementation of such methods. The most dif-
mercial software with relatively small effort. However, though ficult issue in a three-dimensional setting is how to describe and
the EFEM is capable of handling arbitrary crack paths, crack path track the crack surface, at least if crack path continuity is required.
continuity is still required in order to remove spurious mesh- Most methods require a C0 continuous crack surface while there
dependence [88]. A very good review of EFEM is presented by Jirá- are only a few papers that are concerned with higher order contin-
sek [63]. uous crack surfaces [61,86]. Feist and Hofstetter [53], Mosler and
The extended finite element method (XFEM) [8,14,84,85] is also Meschke [87], Chaves [27] and Oliver et al. [104,105] proposed
based on a u þ u ~ decomposition, where the local Partition of Unity three-dimensional methods within the context of the EFEM. Duarte
(PU) concept [5,76,77] is now being applied to industrial problems et al. [41,42] describe a concept for through-the-thickness cracks
[17,19–21,49,146–149]. In contrast to the EFEM, the additional de- within the generalized finite element method [131,132]. Though
grees of freedom inherent to the nodes are introduced in the vari- their method is based on hierarchical interpolation, the crack sur-
ational formulation and have to be solved for. This makes the face is still C0 continuous. Within the context of the XFEM, Moes
method very flexible, e.g. with respect to the application spectrum et al. [86] and Gravouil et al. [61] were the first who presented a
and in the sense that higher order crack openings can be incorpo- three-dimensional implementation with application to LEFM.
rated quite easily. However, it also makes the method more cum- Chopp and Sukumar [31] and Lo et al. [74] presented interesting
bersome to implement into commercial finite element packages. methods for multiple cracks in three-dimension. The few articles
Recent re-interpretations of the original XFEM might be an that describe the application of the element-free Galerkin method
alternative for the incorporation into commercial software to three-dimensional crack problems are the papers by Krysl and
[80,127], which was first performed in the context of standard Belytschko [66], Sukumar et al. [140], Duflot [44], Bordas et al.
XFEM in [19]. The major difference between these versions and ori- [22] and Rabczuk et al. [118].
ginal XFEM is that the crack kinematics is captured by overlapping There are also a few methods that do not enforce crack path
elements rather than by adding additional degrees of freedom. This continuity, e.g. [115,120,124]. While Remmers et al. [120] pro-
way, the existing structure of a given code can be better exploited. posed the method in two-dimensions, the methods by Sancho
A very interesting comparative study between element dele- et al. [124] and Rabczuk and Belytschko [116] are also concerned
tion, inter-element-separation methods and XFEM was recently with three-dimensional implementation. These methods do not re-
presented by Song et al. [128]. A close cousin of the XFEM is the quire crack path continuity. However, for the meshfree approaches,
generalized finite element method (GFEM) [131,132], which was the crack is represented by a set of cracked particles. These cracks
also successful at modelling 3D cracks in [40]. are required to be located at the nodes and have to cross the entire
Boundary element methods (BEM), as stand-alone packages or domain of influence of these nodes. Thus, a relatively fine discret-
coupled to FEM are successful techniques to model crack propaga- ization around the crack is required. Similar constraints apply to
tion, mainly in the context of linear elastic fracture mechanics the finite element approaches. For strongly oscillating crack pat-
(LEFM) [26,32,82]. Several commercial packages are available to terns, artificial cracks might occur that can lead to unrealistic crack
this end. See for instance the papers [34,57,62,83,94]. However, arrest, as is depicted in Fig. 1a. Therefore, Sancho et al. [124] pro-
BEM is not yet well-developed for non-linear materials and multi- poses a crack adaptation to avoid artificial cracking (Fig. 1b).
ple cracks. The paper is organized as follows: in the next section, we will
An alternative to finite elements are meshfree methods. Due to give a brief overview on crack tracking algorithms in three-dimen-
the absence of a mesh, crack growth can be handled ‘‘more natu- sions. We will propose a local crack tracking algorithm that we
rally”. The crack can propagate arbitrarily through the discretiza- used in our applications. Then, we will describe the extended ele-
tion. For certain methods, the crack is considered to be opaque. ment-free Galerkin method (XEFG) to which the crack tracking
Techniques to describe the crack are the visibility method [67] or algorithm is applied. We will give two variants of the XEFG-ver-
the transparency and diffraction method [106], that were devel- sion, the first one guarantees crack closure by crack front enrich-
oped in order to avoid certain shortcomings of the visibility meth- ments while the second variant uses Lagrange multipliers in
od. However, the latter two methods are more cumbersome to order to close the crack at its front. Finally, we will show numerical
implement, especially in a three-dimensional setting. PU-based results and compare them to experimental data.
meshfree methods similar to the XFEM were developed by Ventura
et al. [144] for linear elastic fracture mechanics (LEFM) and later on 2. Crack tracking algorithms
developed for cohesive cracks [117]. A very recent review of mesh-
free methods is presented in [95], where a detailed explanation of a 2.1. Level set method
simple EFG MATLAB code is provided.2 In this paper, a comparison
between local (intrinsic or extrinsic) and global enrichment is also 2.1.1. Describing the crack surface
performed for a simple 1D example. The level set method uses signed distance functions to describe
A very interesting idea to track the crack path was proposed by the crack. Therefore, let us consider a domain X that is divided into
Bourdin et al. [24], Francfort and Marigo [56] and a different one two domains XA and XB. The interface between these two domains
recently in a two-dimensional XFEM context by Dummerstorf is denoted by C, see Fig. 2. Let us define the level set function /(x)
and Meschke [48] and Meschke and Dummerstorf [81]. The basic as
idea is that fracture is considered as a global energy minimization
problem and crack orientation and crack length are introduced as /ðxÞ > 0 8x 2 XA
additional unknowns in the variational formulation (if applied in
/ðxÞ < 0 8x 2 XB ð1Þ
an XFEM-context). The nice feature of this method is that the ori-
entation and length of the crack is the direct outcome of the /ðxÞ ¼ 0 8x 2 C
analysis.
The interface C is the zero iso contour of /(x). Note that the position
of the interface can change with time. Hence, /(x, t) will be time
2
http://people.civil.gla.ac.uk/~bordas. dependent as well.
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T. Rabczuk et al. / Computers and Structures xxx (2008) xxx–xxx 3
Fig. 1. Crack representation without enforcing crack path continuity.
Fig. 2. Description of a two-domain problem by using level sets.
A specific level set function is the signed distance function min kx xC ksignðn ðx xC ÞÞ
/ðxÞ ¼ |ffl{zffl} ð3Þ
(Fig. 3). This function reaches the property of being zero on the sur- xC 2C
face of discontinuity. The distance d from a point x-to the interface
Note that the signed distance function has the following property:
C is
kr/k ¼ 1 ð4Þ
d ¼ kx xC k ð2Þ
In the general case, the signed distance to the interface is not known
where xC is the normal projection of x on C. The level set function /
analytically. The level set is usually discretized. The discretization
(x) is set to
can be based on the underlying discretization for the mechanical
/ðxÞ ¼ d in XA ; problem though this is not mandatory. In fact, level sets have been
/ðxÞ ¼ d in XB : developed for ‘‘non-matching meshes” in an XFEM context3 in [43]
for biofilm growth and [112] for dynamic crack growth in elasto-
This can be written as plastic media. Indeed, the accuracy of the crack surface representa-
tion depends on the continuity of the shape functions used for dis-
cretization of the level set. For example, linear finite element
shape functions will fail to represent a higher order continuous
(e.g. C2) crack surface. The discretized level set is
X
/ðxÞ ¼ UI ðxÞ/I ð5Þ
I2S
where /I is the value of the level set on node I and S is the set of
nodes with UI(x) – 0. This discretization becomes useful when
the value of the level set is needed at the element level. It can be
3
In these methods, a finite difference (FD) mesh is used to update the geometry
(level sets), while a finite element mesh is used for the mechanics (physics). The
advantage is that FD are very mature methods in the resolution of the level set
equations and provide higher order accuracy in space quite naturally. The drawback is
the need for a mapping between the level set mesh and the finite element mesh
Fig. 3. Signed distance function. [43,112].
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evaluated by interpolation. Moreover, the derivative of the level set

involves only the well known derivatives of the shape functions:
X
/;i ðxÞ ¼ UI;i ðxÞ/i ð6Þ
I2S
The initial crack is represented by discretizing these signed distance

functions, i.e., the crack surface. In case of crack initiation, a level set
function describing the crack surface has to be constructed.
2.1.2. Updating the crack surface

Initially, the level set method was applied for tracking interfaces
as they occur e.g. in two-phase flow problems. Therefore, the crack
surface was updated in the normal direction by solving the Hamil-
ton–Jacobi equation for the level set in a domain X4:
o/
8x 2 X : ðxÞ þ ðxÞ r/ðxÞ ¼ 0 ð7Þ
ot
The velocity vector v in fluid problems is known everywhere in X.
However, the crack speed is not know in advance and hence specific
modifications of the level set method are required. As noted e.g. by
Ventura et al. [145], the original level set method [109] is not ideally
suited to track the crack path. First, the crack does not propagate
normally to the crack surface. Second, the crack speed (v in Eq.
(7)) is generally not known. And third, the crack is an open surface
and one level set function is not sufficient in order to uniquely
determine the position of the material points with respect to the
crack surface. Therefore, an additional level set has to be introduced
in order to describe the crack surface, as shown in Fig. 4. This addi-
tional level set function (at the crack front) has to be5 perpendicular
to the original level set function (and perpendicular to the current
crack front) and has to be updated as well. Moreover, the orthogo-
nality condition between / and w must be enforced by solving an
additional equation r/ rw = 0, and both level set functions must
be periodically reinitialized to signed distance functions to preserve
stability, as was first noted in the context of the ‘‘minimal-surface-
problem” resulting in Euler’s Catenoi’d [29,30].
Crack propagation with level sets can be modelled by different
techniques that can be classified into four groups [45]. In the first
group, the level set is updated by the solution of differential equa-
tions, similar to Eq. (7) where the level set functions are the un-
knowns [61]. The equations can be solved on the same mesh as Fig. 4. Description of a 3D crack by two level set functions, / and w. These two
functions need to be orthogonal at the crack front.
the mechanics problem, as in [61], or on a (possibly non-matching)
finite difference mesh, as in [43,112]. The second group is defined
on algebraic relations between the coordinates of a given point, the
coordinates of the crack front and the crack advance vector, see e.g. By application of the basic idea of Belytschko [16], the struc-
[130]. This method is not easily extendable into three-dimensions. tured XFEM prevents an explicit meshing of the boundary of the
The vector level set method [144,145] is defined in terms of geo- solid, through the use of a level set function, see Rabczuk and Bely-
metric transformations. In the vector level set method, the distance tschko [114] for a meshfree context. In this case, a structured mesh
to the crack surface is stored in addition to the signed distance is enough to model the whole solid. It is likely that yet another
function. This facilitates implementation since there is no need to technology will emerge, where both the finite element and finite
solve a PDE to update the level set. difference meshes would be structured.
The last class of methods are based on algebraic and trigono- The renewed recent interest in polygonal finite elements
metric equations involving the initial value of the level set func- [3,4,93,133–139] as well as, more recently, the discovery of the
tions and the crack advance vector. Some of them also require smoothed finite element method, alleviating locking, providing
the description of the crack front. They are well suited for three- higher stress (dual) accuracy in certain conditions and low sensi-
dimensional applications. Duflot [45] suggested a mixed method tivity to mesh distortion, for a low computational cost
defined with differential and non-differential equations. He also [72,73,90,96–98] and its coupling to polygonal approximations
gives an excellent state-of-the-art overview on level set [36] such as Laplace and Wachspress interpolants [91] might open
techniques. a new line of investigation based on structured meshes for com-
plex and moving boundary problems. Special attention may be
4
The Hamilton–Jacobi equation is a hyperbolic conservation law, it is equivalent to brought to the combination of quad-tree adaptivity [142] and
enforcing the material time derivative of the level set function to vanish. This requires smoothed (extended) finite element approximations on polygonal
special stabilization since the standard Bubnov–Galerkin formulation leads to
domains (SmXFEM). First results in this direction are presented in
instabilities. Upwinding, Petrov–Galerkin, Galerkin least squares, streamline upwind
Petrov–Galerkin and finite increment calculus stabilization are all valid possibilities
[23,92].
to stabilize the method. Note also a very recent study of nano-cracks with level sets is
5
In order to determine the position of a node with respect to the crack/crack tip. presented in [122].
ARTICLE IN PRESS
2.2. Global methods sponding crack segment is needed as well as the coordinates of the
piecewise linear crack front. The signed distance function is then
The basic idea of the global crack tracking procedure is to define used to completely describe the crack surfaces and the crack surface
a linear thermal problem to be solved at each time step of the ori- crosses one background cell completely. Usually, adaptive refine-
ginal mechanical problem. Therefore, two vector fields a and b are ment is used around the crack path. Though the method can treat
introduced that have to fulfil the following condition: arbitrary crack growth without remeshing, a certain refinement is
necessary in order to obtain accurate results. Background cells are
a n0 ¼ b n0 ¼ 0 ð8Þ
adaptively refined as well. The nodes do not necessarily have to con-
where n0 is the crack normal in the initial configuration. The family form the background cells which can be exploited when creating the
of surfaces, enveloping both vector fields a and b can be described crack surface, e.g. a finer (different) background mesh can be used to
by a temperature-like function TðXÞ if create the crack surface (as compared for integration). More details
a r0 T ¼ r0 T a ¼ 0 in X0 on the refinement strategy can be found in Rabczuk and Belytschko
ð9Þ [114,116]. We also consider crack initiation, crack branching and
b r0 T ¼ r0 T b ¼ 0 in X0
crack junctions.
holds. Eq. (9) can be rephrased as an anisotropic heat conduction
problem [104,123]. The drawback of this method is that the heat 2.3.1. Geometric description
conduction problem has to be solved at every time step, that makes The crack surfaces are non-planar and represented by the union
the method computationally very expensive. of segments obtained by slicing the tetrahedral background mesh
The partial domain crack tracking algorithm [53] is a modifica- by the failure planes obtained from the cracking criterion de-
tion of the global crack tracking procedure. Instead of globally con- scribed later. These crack segments are either triangles or quadran-
structing the scalar field T, it is only constructed for a subset of the gles depending on how the tetrahedron is split, see Figs. 5 and 6.
domain that is affected by the crack. We allow crack faces to join, as shown in Fig. 7 where /1 and /2
represent the signed distance functions to the joining cracks.
2.3. Local methods
2.3.2. Tracking the crack path
With local crack tracking algorithms, the alignment of the crack 2.3.2.1. Crack initiation. A crack might be initiated at any location in
surface is enforced with respect to its neighborhood. Local crack the discretization. From an implementation point of view, crack
tracking algorithms are usually characterized by recursively ‘‘cut- initiation has to be distinguished from crack propagation. In the
ting” elements and are especially effective in three-dimensions. case of a propagating crack, the location of the crack front is known
These techniques were pursued by Gasser and Holzapfel [58,59] a priori which is not the case for crack initiation. This imposes cer-
and Areias and Belytschko [1]. They can be combined with local level tain requirements on the size (or length in 2D) of the crack to be
sets. Subsequently, we will describe the local crack tracking algo- initiated that is related to the discretization. If the two crack tips
rithm that we used. The method is applied in the context of a PU-en- of the same crack lie within the domain of influence of one node,
riched meshfree-method based on a background mesh for then the crack cannot be described accurately by a partition of
integration though the algorithm can be used in the context of finite unity method any more [7] (Fig. 8a). This means that the initial
elements as well. In that method, only the crack normal to the corre- crack length is coupled to the discretization, see Fig. 8b for an
Fig. 5. Elementary triangular and quadrangular sections of a tetrahedral cell by the cracking plane, defined by its normal obtained by the bifurcation analysis.
ARTICLE IN PRESS
culty occurs when more than one background cell neighboring a

given cell of interest is cracked. In this case and when the continu-
ity of the surface is to be conserved (Fig. 14), the crack direction in
the cell of interest is uniquely determined by the crack normals ob-
tained in its neighboring cells.6 First, this direction might not coin-
cide with the one obtained from the cracking criterion in the cell of
interest. Second, the results might then depend on the order in
which background cells crack. In order to attenuate this problem,
an average technique for the crack normal is applied which is quite
successful when the crack does not curve too much. Adaptive refine-
ment around the crack tip attenuates this problem further. Gener-
ally, we allow multiple cracks to overlap during initiation.
3. Extended element-free Galerkin method
3.1. Standard approximation
The (standard) approximation of the continuous displacement

field us(X, t) in the element-free Galerkin (EFG) method is given by
X
us ðX; tÞ ¼ UI ðXÞuI ðtÞ ð10Þ
I2W
where UI(X) is the shape function of particle I at position XI, W is

the set of all the particles and uI are the parameters which scale
the shape functions. In the EFG method [9,13,55], the shape func-
tions are constructed as follows:
UJ ðXÞ ¼ pT ðXÞ AðXÞ1 DðX J Þ ð11Þ

X
AðXÞ ¼ pðX J ÞpT ðX J ÞWðr J ; hÞ ð12Þ
J
X
DðX J Þ ¼ pðX J ÞWðr J ; hJ Þ ð13Þ
Fig. 6. Crack junction.
J
admissible crack length. In other words, a finer discretization will Hereby, p are the base polynomials, W is the kernel function,
~rJ ¼ r=hJ is a dimensionless distance, r = kX XJk is the distance
lead to a shorter crack under crack initiation. The same applies to
three-dimensional cracks. from XJ to X and hJ is the size of the domain of influence of particle
In our algorithm, we control the crack size and the domain of J, sometimes called support size or dilation parameter. For compu-
influence governs its size. In other words, the crack is generated tational efficiency, linear base polynomials are usually chosen:
in all tetrahedra completely or partially cut by the domain of influ- p = (1, X, Y, Z). For more details, see e.g. [10,13,55,95].
ence of the Gauß point where cracking is detected, see Figs. 9 and
10 for a two-dimensional view for clarity; the orientation is deter- 3.2. Crack kinematics
mined from the cracking criterion discussed later. The tetrahedra
necessary for integration are often spanned by the EFG-nodes. It The local crack tracking algorithm proposed in Section 2.3 is
is obvious that the results are sensitive with respect to the size implemented in the extended element-free Galerkin method
of the tetrahedra and the meshfree dilation parameter. Accuracy [117,118] which is based on a local partition of unity concept. To
is improved significantly by adaptive refinement. model the jump in the displacement field, the displacement
If the cracking criterion is met at several Gauß points within a approximation is decomposed into a standard (us) part, Section
certain neighborhood, the cracking plane is assumed to go through 3.1, and an enriched part (ue):
the iso-barycenter of the cracked Gauß points, and the normal is
taken as the average of the normals associated with each cracked 8X 2 X0 8t > 0; uðX; tÞ ¼ us ðX; tÞ þ ue ðX; tÞ ð14Þ
Gauß point. An example of this is shown in Fig. 11.
We note that the piecewise linear line used to define the front The enriched part of the displacement approximation due to all
enrichment functions is aligned with the edges of the background cracks in e is the sum of the discontinuous contribution associated
cells where the crack front closes. A possible front is shown for illus- with each crack:
tration in Fig. 12. The union of the spherical enriched domains cen- X
tered on points on the crack front forms an enriched tube around the 8X 2 X0 8t > 0; ue ðX; tÞ ¼ uea ðX; tÞ ð15Þ
a2e
front. We found it advantageous to place enriched nodes at the end
of each crack front line. Difficulties arise at sharp corners or kinks at
Let Wa be the set of particles whose domain of influence is cut
the crack front, since a local coordinate system cannot be defined un-
by crack a, and WaI be the enrichment function associated with par-
iquely at each of the vertices on the front. In this case, the enrich-
ticle I and crack a, discontinuous through this crack and defined in
ment to the closest distance to the crack front is used. If the
branch enrichment is omitted, this problem is removed.
2.3.3. Crack propagation 6

Imagine a tetrahedron with two cracked neighbors. Since crack continuity is to be
Crack propagation is realized by recursively cutting the back- fully preserved, the elementary planar crack segment in the tetrahedron of interest
ground tetrahedra in front of the crack tip, as in Fig. 13. One diffi- must be contiguous with the crack segments of its neighbors.
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Fig. 7. The change of the signed distance function when one crack joins with another.
Fig. 8. Crack initiation and crack length in two-dimensions.
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Fig. 9. Representation of a penny-shaped crack as defined upon crack initiation. Note that the crack is not exactly circular.
Fig. 12. A possible piecewise linear crack front.
Fig. 10. Two-dimensional representation of a penny-shaped crack (here a line

segment) as defined upon crack initiation.
Fig. 11. Crack initiation in the case of several cracked Gauß points in a given cell. Fig. 13. Propagation of the crack front.
ARTICLE IN PRESS
Fig. 14. Possible incompatibilities between neighboring crack normals, and normals given by the discontinuous bifurcation analysis.
Fig. 15. Algorithm for crack propagation, initiation and junction.
detail below. The additional degrees of freedom for the enrichment where WaI is the enrichment function of node I. If a domain of influ-
WaI are defined by aaI . The discontinuous part of the displacement ence is cut by a crack, it is enriched with the sign function given by
approximation due to crack a 2 e then is
X 1 for x > 0
signðxÞ ¼ ð17Þ
8X 2 X0 8t > 0; uea ðX; tÞ ¼ UI ðXÞWaI ðxÞaaI ðtÞ ð16Þ 1 for x < 0
I2Wa
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Fig. 16. Intersecting and branching cracks and the associated signed distance
functions.
Let n be the crack normal and Cac represent the surface of crack
a. Let Xa be a point on the surface Cac of crack a 2 e and X a point in
X0. The sign of quantity n (X Xa) defines on which side of Cac X is
located. The distance from X to Cac is minxC 2Cac kX XC k. The signed
distance /a(X) from X to crack a then writes Fig. 17. The change of the signed distance function when one crack joins with
another; the hatched and the empty plane indicates the two crack surfaces in the
8X 2 X0 8Xa 2 Cac ; Ua ðXÞ current configuration.
¼ sign½n ðX Xa Þ min kX XC k ð18Þ

XC 2Cac
The enrichment for crack a and particle I writes

8a 2 e 8I 2 W 8X 2 X0 ; WaI ðXÞ
¼ sign½/a ðXÞ sign½/a ðXI Þ ð19Þ
ðaÞ
For a branching crack, another crack branch represented by /I ðXÞ
has to be introduced (Fig. 16).
Let W1b be the set of nodes whose domain of influence is cut by
the discontinuity /1(X) = 0 and W2b the corresponding set for
/2(X) = 0. W3b ¼ W1b \ W2b . By using the signed distance functions
of the pre-existing and approaching crack, the signed distance
function of the approaching crack is modified. Consider Fig. 17
where three different subdomains have to be considered [154]:
(/1 < 0, /2 < 0), (/1 > 0, /2 > 0), (/1 > 0, /2 < 0) as in Fig. 17a and b
or (/1 > 0, /2 < 0), (/1 > 0, /2 > 0), (/1 < 0, /2 < 0) as in Fig. 17c and Fig. 18. The enrichment for the crack tip by using the step function in (a) the finite
d. The signed distance function of crack 1 of a point X is then ob- element method and (b) meshless methods; solids are enriched nodes and circles
tained by unenriched nodes.
(
1 /10 ðXÞ; if /20 ðXð1Þ Þ/20 ðXÞ > 0
/ ðXÞ ¼ ð20Þ cle. The branch enrichment used here is B = r sin h/2 where r is the
/10 ðXÞ; if /20 ðXð1Þ Þ/20 ðXÞ < 0
distance from the crack front to a material point and h is the angle
in which /10 ðxÞ, /20 ðxÞ represent the signed distance functions of between the crack front and the line that connects a specific mate-
cracks 1 and 2 without consideration of the junction, respectively, rial point with the crack front. The first term (r) ensures that the
and X(1) is any point on crack 1. The approximation for a branching crack closes at the front while the second term (sin h/2) ensures
crack is then performed with this modified signed distance the jump8 in the displacement field. In the next section, we will dis-
functions. cuss other numerical techniques to close the crack at its front.
The above approximation ensures the jump in the displace-
ment. However, it does not ensure that the crack closes at its crack 3.3. Enforcing crack closure along their front
front. Therefore, a so called branch enrichment7 B, sometimes
called tip-enrichment, is often used in order to ensure crack closure Let us now see how the cracks may be closed along their fronts
at the crack front. In case a branch enrichment is used in order to without recourse to near-front enrichment in meshfree methods.
close the crack, the enriched approximation becomes When cracks are not discretized, i.e. when nodes are not present
along the crack faces, as is the case in enriched FEM and meshfree
X
nc X X
mt
ue ðXÞ ¼ UI ðXÞWaI ðXÞaIðaÞ þ methods, a strategy must be fashioned to close each crack along its
a¼1 I2Wb ðXÞ b¼1 front. Crack closure along the front is a natural outcome of near-
X ðbÞ front enrichment vanishing along the front, as in [118] for instance.
UI ðXÞBðbÞ
K ðXÞPbKI ð21Þ
In the context of the extended finite element method, a methodol-
I2Ws ðXÞ
ogy was devised to close the crack without near-front enrichment
where nc is the number of cracks and mt is the number of cracks that [38,153] as long as the crack tip is located on element edges. In C0-
partially cross the domain of influence of the corresponding parti- FEM-based methods, the shape function associated with each node
is only coupled with those of the nodes contained in its support.
7
The term ‘‘branch enrichment” is completely unrelated to whether the crack is
8
branching or not. It is an other terminology for ‘‘near-tip fields”. sin(p/2) = +1 and sin(p/2) = 1.
ARTICLE IN PRESS
in Menouillard et al. [78,79] and Rozycki et al. [121]. Numerical

integration is based on a sub-tetrahedration of the background
mesh [118] or by modification of the quadrature weights [113].
5. Cracking
5.1. Measure of the crack opening and sliding
Since the standard part us, Eq. (10), of the displacement field is
continuous everywhere, the jump in the displacement field is gov-
erned only by the enriched part ue, Eq. (16), and is given by
X X
suðXÞt ¼ 2 UIðaÞ ðXÞaaI ð25Þ
a2e I2Wa ðXÞ
in case tip enrichment is omitted. Otherwise, see Eq. (21), we obtain

X X X
mt X X
Fig. 19. Crack extension and Lagrange multiplier field along the crack front in order suðXÞt ¼ 2 UIðaÞ ðXÞaaI þ UðbÞ
I ðXÞ sBK ðXÞtbKI
ðbÞ
to close the crack at its front. a2e I2Wa ðXÞ b¼1 I2Wb ðXÞ K
ð26Þ
Imagine a crack tip in a two-dimensional finite element mesh; see
Fig. 18a, where the crack tip is positioned on the edge connecting
nodes A and B. Because the crack must close at its tip, i.e., the crack
opening displacement must be zero, nodes A and B should not be
enriched.9 Fig. 18b shows the situation in meshless methods. As
can be easily seen, the technique applied in XFEM cannot be
adopted. Therefore, we propose the construction of a Lagrange mul-
tiplier field to close the cracks along their fronts. If only the sign
function enrichment of Eq. (19) is used, the discontinuity Cc extends
beyond the crack front, as depicted in Fig. 19. To correctly model the
crack, the discontinuity on the front Cc should vanish. Because the
condition should be satisfied along a line in 3D space, the Lagrange
multiplier field must be discretized. To avoid introducing additional
nodes for the discretization of the Lagrange multipliers, we use the
same shape functions as those for the domain partially cut by the
crack. The detailed formulation is given in [155].
4. Discretized equations Fig. 20. Crack branching in a given background cell.
The governing equation is the linear momentum balance. The

discrete equations are obtained by substituting the test and trial
functions into the weak form of the linear momentum equations.
The test and trial functions are either of the form (21), i.e. with
crack front enrichment, or of the form (14) and (15), i.e. without
crack front enrichment. The final system of equations to be solved
has the common structure:
€ ¼ Fext þ Fcoh Fint
MD ð22Þ
where M is the consistent mass matrix, D is the vector of general-
ized parameters, Fext, Fint, Fcoh are the discrete external, internal
and cohesive force vectors, respectively. In case, the crack front
enrichment is omitted, the system of equations have a slightly dif-
ferent form:
€ ¼ Fext þ Fcoh Fint FL
MD ð23Þ
Ga ¼ 0 ð24Þ
Here, FL is the force term due to the constraint to close the crack at
its front and with the last equation, it is ensured that the crack
closes at its front properly. More detailed explanations and the der-
ivation of above equations can be found in Bordas et al. [22] and
Rabczuk et al. [118]. Efficient mass lumping procedures are given
9
If they were enriched with a function discontinuous through the crack interior, Fig. 21. The types of the cohesive laws frequently used in practice: (a) initially
the displacement approximation would be discontinuous along line segment [AB], elastic; (b) initially rigid linear (or triangular); (c) initially rigid bilinear; (d) initially
and the opening of the crack would be non-zero. rigid exponential cohesive laws.
ARTICLE IN PRESS
Fig. 22. Typical discretization of the penny crack problem; two-dimensional topview.
The normal part dn, i.e., the crack opening and the tangential part dimensional stress–displacement laws. When a potential for the
su(x)ts, the crack sliding is given by cohesive crack is defined, the unidirectional stress–displacement
relation can be extended to general mixed mode problems, as in
dn ¼ n suðXÞt ð27Þ
[25,107].
dt ¼ ksuðXÞt ndn k ð28Þ
6. Numerical examples
5.2. Initiation and propagation of cracks
6.1. The penny-shape crack problem
The detailed cracking algorithm is illustrated in Fig. 15. We em-
ploy the Rankine criterion and the loss of material stability crite- In this section, we will compare the two proposed methods
rion for crack initiation and propagation, as proposed by (with and without branch enrichment) for a cube of side length a
Belytschko et al. [15]. For the latter, a crack is initiated or propa- at the center of which a penny-shaped crack of radius r is embed-
gated if the minimum eigenvalue of the acoustic tensor Q is smal- ded. For this example, the branch functions used are
pffiffiffi pffiffiffi pffiffiffi pffiffiffi
ler or equal to zero: B¼ r sin 2h ; r cos 2h ; r sin 2h sin h; r cos 2h sin h . The cube is
subjected to uniaxial tension rc = 1 kPa. For an infinite medium,
min eigðQ Þ 6 0 with Q ¼ n A n ð29Þ
the analytical
pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi solution for the stress intensity factor is
where n ¼ ðcos a cos /; cos a sin /; sin aÞ is the normal to the crack K I ¼ 2rc r=p. For a = 50r, the error in the stress intensity factor
surface depending on the angles a and /, A = Ct + r I, r is the is computed for different refinements with different particle spac-
Cauchy stress tensor and Ct is the fourth order tangential modulus. ing (30 30 30, 60 60 60 and 120 120 120); note that
Note that we allow crack branching in a given background cell, we refine around the crack (that is not shown in the figure), see
as in Fig. 20. The cracking criterion is checked at the Gauß points Fig. 22 in a two-dimensional topview. The computed SIFs are
ahead of the crack fronts and if two significantly different normal shown in Table 1. Note that we did not align the nodes with the
directions (1 and 2 in Fig. 20) are found, the crack is assumed to
branch. Table 1
Stress intensity factors for the mode I penny-shaped crack problem
5.3. Cohesive cracks Method Relative 30 30 30 60 60 60 120 120 120
error on KI
Cohesive models can be distinguished between initially elastic
With branch Average (%) 0.085 0.05 0.03
(sometimes called intrinsic) models and initially rigid (sometimes enrichment
called extrinsic) models. While initially elastic models have ini- With branch Maximum 0.2 0.112 0.068
tially a positive slope, initially rigid models will have an infinite enrichment (%)
effective stiffness at crack initiation (Fig. 21). The major drawback Without branch Average (%) 1.49 0.92 0.564
of initially elastic models is that they violate traction continuity at enrichment
Without branch Maximum 3.3 2.07 1.213
crack initiation, i.e., tc – n r at crack initiation since tc = 0. We
enrichment (%)
used initially rigid cohesive models as shown in Fig. 21 for one-
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Fig. 26. Setup of the chalk torsion test.
Fig. 23. Test-setup of the pull out test.
Fig. 24. Crack pattern of the pull out test.
Fig. 27. (a) A three dimensional helical crack surface of a chalk failed by torsion and
(b,c) the factured chalk simulated by the extended element-free Galerkin method in
which the mesh consisting of tetrahedroa is used for integration only.
crack. The results with branch enrichment are significantly better

compared to the results without branch enrichment which is
Fig. 25. Load–deflection curve of the pull out test. expected.
ARTICLE IN PRESS
parameters are j = 16,670 MPa and m = 12,500 MPa. For the cohe-
sive model, we use, according to Gasser and Holzapfel [58],
t0 = 3 MPa, a = 11.323 mm1, b = 0.674 and a = 1.
We tested two discretizations starting with 15,000 and 45,000
nodes and refined adaptively [114]. The crack pattern at different
load stages is shown in Fig. 24 for the fine discretization and differ-
ent view points. Note that the surface of the crack is rippling, and is
captured nicely. The load–deflection curve is shown in Fig. 25 and
is similar to results presented in Gasser and Holzapfel [58] and
Areias and Belytschko [1]. The results and the computation time
of the two proposed methods are very similar.
6.3. Chalk under torsion
In this section, we analyze numerically the problem of a circu-

lar-cylindrical chalk bar under torsion. The test-setup is shown in
Fig. 26. A non-uniform traction boundary condition is applied
and a small pertubation is introduced on the lateral surface on
Fig. 28. A plate with an edge crack loaded by a uniform traction on the top and
the midplane normal to the cylinder’s director. We assumed linear
bottom edges.
elastic material in the bulk with Young’s modulus E = 2 GPa, Pois-
son’s ratio m = 0.18 and fracture energy Gf = 50 N/m. The linear
6.2. Pull out test cohesive law is adopted for simplicity; tmax was 200 kPa. The Ran-
kine criterion determined crack propagation.
Consider a pull out test of reinforced concrete as shown in If the numerical chalk specimen were ‘‘perfect”, the failure
Fig. 23. This example was studied previously by Gasser and Hol- would happen at an arbitrary position. The experimental failure
zapfel [58] and Areias and Belytschko [1] by the PUFEM and XFEM, surface of the chalk is compared to the numerical failure surface
respectively. We also employed symmetry conditions and mod- in Fig. 27. We note that the numerical results are relatively sensi-
elled only one quarter of the specimen. A vertical displacement tive to boundary conditions and to the dimensions of the model
boundary condition is applied to pull the reinforcement bar out specimen; more specifically, the ratio between the length and
of the concrete specimen as illustrated in Fig. 23. We adopted the cross section is influential. If the length is large compared to
the same constitutive and cohesive model as Gasser and Holzapfel the diameter of the chalk bar, and the tractions applied uniformly,
[58]. At crack initiation, the cohesive tractions are computed from then the elastic strain energy stored is large, resulting in a rela-
the bulk, i.e. tc = n r to ensure traction continuity. The material tively straight fracture surface. For non-uniform boundary condi-
Fig. 29. Crack branching problem.
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Fig. 30. Crack speed time history for the crack branching problem.
Fig. 32. Deformed Taylor bar (bottom view) for an impact velocity of 270 m/s.
Fig. 31. Deformed Taylor bar at different times and different points of view for an impact velocity of 270 m/s.
ARTICLE IN PRESS
Fig. 33. Brittle failure of the Taylor bar: deformation plots at different times and different point of views of the Taylor bar; impact velocity is 600 m/s.
tions, as illustrated in Fig. 27, we obtain a helical fracture surface, speed increases almost up to the maximum theoretical value of
comparable to the experimental failure surface. the Rayleigh wave speed. Then the crack branches and the crack
speed quickly decreases again. Following the upper path of the
6.4. Crack branching crack,10 the crack speed soon accelerates and at a certain speed,
the crack branches again. Directly after crack branching, the crack
In this section, we examine the performance of the method for a speed decreases monotonically until the crack almost hits the right
crack branching problem. Consider a rectangular prenotched spec- hand end of the specimen. We note that the crack speed at the sec-
imen as shown in Fig. 28. The length of the rectangle is 0.1 m, the ond time of bifurcation is smaller compared to the one when the
width 0.04 m and depth 0.004 m. Initially, there is a horizontal crack bifurcates first. The relation between crack speed and crack
crack from the left edge to the center of the plate over the entire branching is still an unsolved problem.
thickness. A tensile traction of 1 MPa is applied on the top and bot-
tom edges. 6.5. Taylor bar impact
We used Lemaitre’s damage law [68], loss of hyperbolicity and
an exponential decaying cohesive law (Fig. 21c). The material con- For the taylor bar impact, we introduced the crack surface be-
stants are . = 2450 kg/m3, E = 32 MPa, m = 0.2 and A = 1.0, B = 7300 tween ‘‘splitted” nodes once the failure criterion is met similar as
and D0 ¼ 8:5 105 for the Lemaitre model. Two-dimensional suggested by [116]. This is simpler for complicated crack patterns
computations of this problem have previously been reported by with large deformations. For computational efficiency, we also
Falk et al. [51], Rabczuk and Belytschko [115] and Xu and Needle- switched to nodal intergration (with stress points). There are
man [150]. A three-dimensional computation was carried out in experimental results available, see Teng et al. [143]. The Taylor
Rabczuk and Belytschko [116]. Experimental data is available, see bar is made of 2024-T351 aluminium alloy and has a diameter of
Fineberg et al. [54], Ravi-Chandar [119] and Sharon and Fineberg 6 mm and length 30 mm. Different impact velocities ranging from
[126]. 270 to 600 m/s were considered. The Johnson–Cook model [64]
The crack pattern is shown in Fig. 29 at different time steps. with J2 plasticity was used. The effective yield stress of the John-
Two crack branches appear, similarly to results obtained in Bely- son–Cook model is given by
tschko et al. [15], Rabczuk and Belytschko [115] and Song et al.
[127]. The time history of the crack speed is shown in Fig. 30.
The crack starts to propagate at about 0.012 ms and the crack 10
The same observations apply for the lower crack path.
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Fig. 34. Deformed Taylor bar at different times if no failure criterion is incorporated; impact velocity is 600 m/s.
rY ¼ ðA þ Bcn Þð1 þ C ln c_ Þð1 T Þ ð30Þ 6.6. Flyer plate impact

with material parameters A; B; C; c ¼ c_ =c_ 0 where c is the effective
_
The last example is a flyer plate impact problem [28] (Fig. 35).
plastic strain and c_ 0 is the reference strain rate taken to be 1.0 s1
The flyer plate and the target plate are made of the same material.
and
We will present results for an impact velocity of 290 m/s. A large
T Tr amount of (spalling) cracking was observed in the experiments.
T ¼ ð31Þ
Tm Tr We have done a similar simulation in [118]. However, due to the
relatively complicated algorithm when cracks join under crack ini-
where Tr is the reference temperature and Tm is the melting temper-
tiation [118], the cracks were aligned in the spall plane so that the
ature. We assume that the plastic deformation is completely trans-
crack edges are conforming. Here, the crack orientation from the
formed into heat, so b = 1 for the temperature update:
Z bifurcation analysis is kept without any crack adaptation. The crack
c
b
DT ¼ rY dc ð32Þ
0 .c
where cv is the specific heat and . the current mass density. The
material parameters are Young’s modulus E = 74 GPa, Poisson ratio
m = 0.3, density 0.0027 g/mm3, a reference strain rate of 3.33 104,
A = 352 MPa, B = 440 MPa, C = 0.0083, n = 0.42, m = 1, cv = 875 J/
kg °C, Tr = 296 K, Tm = =775 K and b = 1. We introduced the crack
when the maximum principal tensile stress exceeds a certain
threshold ft = 3A.
Fig. 31a–f shows the deformed bar at different time steps for an
impact velocity of 270 m/s. A bottom view is shown in Fig. 32.
For an impact velocity of 600 m/s, the deformation of the bar at
different times is shown in Fig. 33a–e. The major failure mecha-
nism of the experiment, petalling, can be reproduced. Four large
major cracks develop relatively early in the simulation that lead
to the formation of four major petals. Fig. 34 shows the deforma-
tions of the bar if no fracture criterion is incorporated. The exper-
imental result cannot be captured appropriately in this case. Fig. 35. Schematic test-setup of the flyer plate impact problem.
ARTICLE IN PRESS
Fig. 36. Deformation and spalling plane of the flyer plate; the deformation are shown magnified.
surface is not continuous any more but it widens the application niques described in this paper and abundant in the literature.
range. Although it is difficult to make a fair account on this topic without
We use the high strength steel material data according to Chev- dedicated tests, it seems like the XFEM has computational cost
rier and Klepaczko [28] and accounted for spatial variation in the advantages. Yet, on the negative side, this method is still not able
material strength, i.e. the material strength is multiplied by a factor to provide accurate stress intensity factors in 3D that are judged
0.95 < a < 1.05 obtained from a log-normal distribution around the accurate enough for industrial applications [146–149], which has
mean value of 1 and a standard deviation of 1.5%. This should ac- spurred recent interest in the development of a posteriori error
count for potential small imperfections. indicators and estimators as well as adaptivity [18,46,129].
The deformed flyer plate and the corresponding crack segments This latter stream of research may suggest that XFEM and reme-
are shown in Fig. 36 and match well the experimental results. For a shing could become a ‘‘marriage of convenience” in years to come
better illustration, the flyer plate is cut in the middle. as advocated in Duflot and Stéphane Bordas [47]. This may be in
particulary true in the context of polygonal (X)FEM, proposed by
7. Conclusions Tabarraei and Sukumar [142].
On the other hand, meshfree methods still have a large advan-
We have presented an overview on three-dimensional crack tage over FEM based techniques such as the XFEM for problems
tracking procedures for numerical methods for fracture that en- involving large deformation and fragmentation such as the Taylor
force crack path continuity. A detailed description of a local crack bar impact treated in this paper, because finite elements are not
tracking procedure that we used in our simulations was given. naturally able to deal with very distorted meshes.
The algorithm is incorporated into the XEFG method for cohesive An interesting recent discovery on this topic is the smoothed fi-
cracks. One difficulty in XEFG is the closure of the crack front. nite element method, which allows the use of very distorted
We have presented two possibilities: crack closure by crack front meshes in a finite element context. A very recent review of this
enrichments and crack closure without crack front enrichment method is given in [23]. Although the latter has only been em-
by use of Lagrange multipliers. We have applied our methods to ployed in a 2D or 3D continuum and plate/shell setting
several quasi-static and dynamic problems where experimental [72,73,90,96–98] its coupling with partition of unity enrichment
data or other data from analytical/numerical analysis is available. [23] may provide a viable alternative to meshfree methods for
When plane crack segments are used to describe the crack, problems involving both evolving discontinuities and large defor-
uniqueness issues occur when the crack is closed with branch mation/fragmentation.
functions. The union of the spherical enriched domains centered
on points on the crack front forms an enriched tube around the References
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On three-dimensional modeling of crack growth using partition of unity

Article in Computers & Structures · December 2010

Timon Rabczuk Stéphane Pierre Alain Bordas

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Computers and Structures xxx (2008) xxx–xxx

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Computers and Structures

On three-dimensional modelling of crack growth using partition of unity methods

1. Introduction dependence but is computationally expensive. Moreover, errors

2 T. Rabczuk et al. / Computers and Structures xxx (2008) xxx–xxx

T. Rabczuk et al. / Computers and Structures xxx (2008) xxx–xxx 3

Fig. 1. Crack representation without enforcing crack path continuity.

Fig. 2. Description of a two-domain problem by using level sets.

4 T. Rabczuk et al. / Computers and Structures xxx (2008) xxx–xxx

evaluated by interpolation. Moreover, the derivative of the level set

The initial crack is represented by discretizing these signed distance

2.1.2. Updating the crack surface

T. Rabczuk et al. / Computers and Structures xxx (2008) xxx–xxx 5

6 T. Rabczuk et al. / Computers and Structures xxx (2008) xxx–xxx

culty occurs when more than one background cell neighboring a

3. Extended element-free Galerkin method

3.1. Standard approximation

The (standard) approximation of the continuous displacement

where UI(X) is the shape function of particle I at position XI, W is

UJ ðXÞ ¼ pT ðXÞ AðXÞ1 DðX J Þ ð11Þ

2.3.3. Crack propagation 6

T. Rabczuk et al. / Computers and Structures xxx (2008) xxx–xxx 7

Fig. 8. Crack initiation and crack length in two-dimensions.

8 T. Rabczuk et al. / Computers and Structures xxx (2008) xxx–xxx

Fig. 12. A possible piecewise linear crack front.

Fig. 10. Two-dimensional representation of a penny-shaped crack (here a line

T. Rabczuk et al. / Computers and Structures xxx (2008) xxx–xxx 9

Fig. 15. Algorithm for crack propagation, initiation and junction.

10 T. Rabczuk et al. / Computers and Structures xxx (2008) xxx–xxx

¼ sign½n ðX Xa Þ min kX XC k ð18Þ

The enrichment for crack a and particle I writes

T. Rabczuk et al. / Computers and Structures xxx (2008) xxx–xxx 11

in Menouillard et al. [78,79] and Rozycki et al. [121]. Numerical

5.1. Measure of the crack opening and sliding

in case tip enrichment is omitted. Otherwise, see Eq. (21), we obtain

4. Discretized equations Fig. 20. Crack branching in a given background cell.

The governing equation is the linear momentum balance. The

12 T. Rabczuk et al. / Computers and Structures xxx (2008) xxx–xxx

T. Rabczuk et al. / Computers and Structures xxx (2008) xxx–xxx 13

Fig. 26. Setup of the chalk torsion test.

Fig. 23. Test-setup of the pull out test.

Fig. 24. Crack pattern of the pull out test.

crack. The results with branch enrichment are signiﬁcantly better

14 T. Rabczuk et al. / Computers and Structures xxx (2008) xxx–xxx

6.3. Chalk under torsion

In this section, we analyze numerically the problem of a circu-

Fig. 29. Crack branching problem.

T. Rabczuk et al. / Computers and Structures xxx (2008) xxx–xxx 15

16 T. Rabczuk et al. / Computers and Structures xxx (2008) xxx–xxx

T. Rabczuk et al. / Computers and Structures xxx (2008) xxx–xxx 17

rY ¼ ðA þ Bcn Þð1 þ C ln c_  Þð1 T  Þ ð30Þ 6.6. Flyer plate impact

18 T. Rabczuk et al. / Computers and Structures xxx (2008) xxx–xxx

T. Rabczuk et al. / Computers and Structures xxx (2008) xxx–xxx 19

20 T. Rabczuk et al. / Computers and Structures xxx (2008) xxx–xxx

rY ¼ ðA þ Bcn Þð1 þ C ln c_ Þð1 T Þ ð30Þ 6.6. Flyer plate impact