European Journal of Mechanics A/Solids 30 (2011) 293e306

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European Journal of Mechanics A/Solids

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

Crack insertion, meshing and fracture analysis of structures using tetrahedral

finite elements
Ergun Nart a, Ali O. Ayhan b, *,1
a
Department of Mechatronics Engineering, Sakarya University, 54187 Sakarya, Turkey
b
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Yildiz Technical University, 34349, Besiktas, Istanbul, Turkey

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: In this study, a method and corresponding tools are presented to insert a three-dimensional crack of
Received 15 July 2010 a given size and location into a finite element model without any cracks using fully unstructured finite
Accepted 21 December 2010 elements. For research purposes, publicly available two and three-dimensional meshing software, Tri-
Available online 30 December 2010
angleÓ and TetgenÓ, are utilized and integrated with an in-house developed program to compatibly
select and re-mesh the three-dimensional crack region of the original input model. Within the proce-
Keywords:
dure, the boundary conditions and loads existing on the original model are also book kept and trans-
Crack insertion
ferred to the new model containing the crack. Next, the new finite element model, which now contains
Meshing
Three-dimensional crack
the crack geometry, the loads and boundary conditions, is solved in a general-purpose finite element
Unstructured mesh program employing enriched elements. The above procedure is demonstrated on a series of surface crack
Enriched elements problems in finite-thickness plates including mixed-mode fracture conditions. The obtained results are
compared to well-known solutions available in the literature. These comparisons showed good agree-
ment for all cases analyzed. It is, therefore, concluded that the procedure developed is valid, efficient and
yields accurate three-dimensional fracture solutions.
Ó 2010 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction One of the main and most critical steps of a three-dimensional

The finite element method has become the most commonly
used technique for modeling three-dimensional fracture problems
that are dealt with in practice. There are different procedures that
use finite elements for calculation of important fracture parameters
such as stress intensity factors and strain energy release rates.
Today’s most existing methods require comprehensive and struc-
tured mesh to model the severe stress gradient near the crack front.
As a pre-processing stage, in the absence of customized and auto-
mated procedures and tools, depending on the complexity of the
analyzed geometry this step may require tremendous amount of
efforts and time for building an appropriate finite element model
with crack included. Moreover, in most methods, considerable
amount of time and effort may be needed to post-process the finite
element solution for extraction of fracture parameters. Thus,
accurate and time saving methods/tools are very desirable to be
able to model and analyze most three-dimensional fracture
problems.
* Corresponding author. Tel.: þ90 (212) 383 27 76; fax: þ90 (212) 261 6659.
E-mail address: aoayhan@yildiz.edu.tr (A.O. Ayhan).
1
Formerly at: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Sakarya University, 54187
Sakarya, Turkey.
fracture analysis process is to generate a finite element fracture
model that is suitable for the chosen analysis method. One way of
preparing this model is to include crack geometry as part of the
solid model and mesh it with appropriate software. Another way is
to take an uncracked finite element model, which can readily be
available as part of stress analyses for design of a part, and modify
its mesh to include the three-dimensional crack. Especially when
there are no boundary conditions or loads in the crack region, this
method would be very desirable as one can always keep the orig-
inal boundary conditions and loads, just modify the mesh for crack
inclusion and perform the fracture analysis. As part of analysis
requirements, today’s most existing crack insertion techniques
generate focused and structured mesh around the crack front. One
of the early crack insertion and mode-I crack propagation analyses
are done by Dhont (1998a,b), who presented an automatic cutting
procedure applied to arbitrarily meshed structures, in which new
20-node brick elements are automatically generated to represent
crack geometry. A similar approach is taken by ZENCRACKÓ soft-
ware, which uses a crack-block containing a collection of brick
elements to insert the crack shape into the mesh and perform the
fracture analysis (Hou et al., 2001; Hrazsky and Makys, 2001;
Zentech, 2008). Mixed-element approaches also exist for inser-
tion of three-dimensional cracks into uncracked finite element

0997-7538/$ e see front matter Ó 2010 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.euromechsol.2010.12.010
294 E. Nart, A.O. Ayhan / European Journal of Mechanics A/Solids 30 (2011) 293e306
meshes. In this case, tetrahedral elements are used everywhere in
the model, while hexahedron (Schollmann et al., 2003) and
pentahedron/hexahedron elements (Brenberg and Dhont, 2007,
2009; Bremberg and Dhont, 2008; Wawrzynek et al., 2009;
Simmetrix, 2009) are used in the immediate vicinity of the crack
front. Studies of fully unstructured fracture model meshing (Neto
et al., 2001) and crack growth simulations (Gurses and Miehe,
2009) also exist. In the work of Gurses and Miehe (2009), using
fully unstructured mesh, an algorithm is presented based on
a nodal-force-based staggered energy minimization with r-adap-
tive crack facets alignment and the discretization of the evolving
crack discontinuity by doubling of critical nodes and triangular
interface facets of the tetrahedral mesh. Other finite element
(Bouchard et al., 2003; Phongthanapanich and Dechaumphai,
2004; Colombo and Giglio, 2006; Paluszny and Matthai, 2009;
Azócar et al., 2010) and extended finite element studies (Sukumar
and Prevost, 2003) also exist that focus on crack insertion and
propagation in two dimensions.
In this study, a procedure is presented that takes an uncracked
fully unstructured finite element mesh and inserts a three-dimen-
sional crack of a given size, location and orientation using fully
tetrahedral elements including along the crack front. Within the
procedure presented, publicly available two and three-dimensional
meshing software, TriangleÓ (Shewchuk, 1996; Triangle website)
and TetgenÓ (Si, 2010; Tetgen website), respectively, are utilized in
an integrated manner with an in-house developed program. First,
the crack face is meshed two-dimensionally using TriangleÓ and
a group of tetrahedral elements within a region of given size (chunk
mesh) is taken out of the original model. Then, two-dimensional
crack face mesh nodes are first transformed into the desired space
and orientation, which is followed by their insertion into the chunk
mesh by making the necessary modifications. Finally, the modified
chunk mesh is unified back to the original finite element model with
chunk region taken out. In executing this method, the boundary
conditions and loads existing on the original model are book kept
and included in the final model. The novel part of this study is to be
able to use fully unstructured mesh everywhere in the model to
compute the important fracture parameters such as stress intensity
Fig. 1. Process map of crack insertion procedure.
factors along a three-dimensional crack front. In the following
sections, the crack insertion and meshing procedures are explained
in detail and examples are presented that demonstrate the validity
of the finite element mesh with the crack from a deformation and
fracture analysis perspective. The generated fracture models with
unstructured meshes having mode-I and mixed-mode conditions
are validated via three-dimensional fracture analyses using tetra-
hedral enriched elements. In a previous study (Ayhan, 2011), details
related to the formulation and integration of tetrahedral enriched
elements are given and a wide range of applications are presented to
demonstrate usage and validate the method and they are not
repeated here. The applications presented are mode-I surface cracks
with different aspect ratios and deflected and inclined surface cracks
inserted into uncracked finite-thickness plates.
2. Crack insertion into an uncracked finite element model
In this section, details of the crack insertion procedure are given
that results in a fully unstructured mesh with crack included. Fig. 1
shows the process map of the crack insertion procedure. The main
steps in the process are:
1. An initial mesh is imported as an input,
2. The location, orientation and size parameters of the crack is
entered,
3. A group of elements within a region of given size according to
the crack location and size properties are selected and stored
separately (chunk mesh),
4. Interior nodes on the chunk mesh are removed and the chunk
boundaries are defined by the existing triangular facets,
5. Crack surface is intersected with triangular facets on the free-
surface of the chunk mesh to determine the outer crack face
lines (crack mouth lines),
6. Then, together with the crack tip line, boundaries of the crack
face are regenerated,
7. The resulting crack face is meshed with triangular elements
using TriangleÓ,
 E. Nart, A.O. Ayhan / European Journal of Mechanics A/Solids 30 (2011) 293e306 295

8. The chunk boundary is re-arranged including the triangular y'

elements on the meshed crack faces after transformation into transformation
the desired location and orientation. In this step, crack faces are x'
placed slightly open and connected on the crack front to form
pocket-like surfaces in the definition of cracked-chunk a
boundary,
9. Using the newly defined chunk outer boundaries with crack
included as a manifold meshed surface, discretize the chunk 2c
volume with tetrahedral elements with refinement near crack
front line,
10. The resulting cracked-chunk mesh and the original mesh
without the chunk region are unified and re-numbered. Slightly
opened tetra faces belonging to crack faces are closed,
11. Boundary conditions and loads are transferred to the new
model.

The above procedure is now explained in detail step by step and

demonstrated by inserting a surface crack into a finite-thickness
plate. Fig. 3. Crack insertion onto an arbitrarily oriented planar surface.

2.1. Step 1: original mesh input

can be arbitrarily oriented in space as defined by its normal vector, n.
In this step, a previously generated finite element mesh is input Furthermore, relative to this surface, the planar and semi-elliptical
to the process. Typically, the mesh would be checked for possible crack face can be inclined and/or deflected as defined by the rotation
errors in mesh connectivity, boundary conditions or loads. Fig. 2 angles with respect to normal vector, g, and axis of the ellipse, q.
shows an exemplary input finite element model, developed using First, the crack area is meshed in the local x0 ey0 domain using the
ANSYSÔ (2009), for a finite-thickness plate under uniform tensile crack dimensions, a and c. Then, for non-zero deflection and incli-
pressure loading. nation angles, q and g, this mesh is first rotated, respectively, about x0
axis and the surface normal vector, n. Then, the y0 axis of the rotated
2.2. Step 2: crack size, location and orientation information mesh is aligned with the surface normal vector, n, which is followed
by its translation into the crack area centroid (x0, y0, z0). In order to
Crack size, location and orientation data is input in this step. For align the y0 axis of the two-dimensional crack face mesh with the
a crack having elliptical front shape, the following data need to be normal vector at the crack area centroid, two consecutive rotations
known; the sizes along major (c) and minor (a) axes, coordinates of of the normal vector along the y0 axis are needed. These are,
elliptical crack area centroid (x0, y0, z0) and direction cosines (nx, ny, respectively, a rotation about x axis by b and another rotation about z
nz) of the normal vector (n) of the free-surface at the crack centroid axis by a (Fig. 4). Therefore, when nx and ny are non-zero, the
location where the crack will be inserted. Once the necessary data is transformation matrix is given by (Rogers and Adams, 1989)
provided, the crack face mesh, which is first obtained in two-
dimensional xey plane, is transformed into the corresponding


½T ¼ ½Rq  Rg Rb ½Ra  ½Tr; (1)
three-dimensional space. This process can be explained by the
following example.
Consider, now, that we are to insert a semi-elliptical and arbi- where
trarily oriented crack on the inclined surface shown in Fig. 3. As can
be seen from this figure, the surface on which the crack is inserted 2 3
1 0 0 0
60 Cos q Sin q 07
½Rq  ¼ 6
40
7;
Sin q Cos q 05
0 0 0 1
2 3
Cos g 0 Sin g 0

6 0
 1 0 07
Rg ¼ 6
4 Sin g
7;
0 Cos g 05
0 0 0 1
2 3 2 ny 3
1 0 0 0 ndx 0 0
h i 60 7
d
6 nx 07
d nx 07 ny
Rb ¼ 6
40 ; ½R a  ¼ 6d d
0 7;
nx d 05 40 0 1 05
0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1
2 3
1 0 0 0
60 qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
1 0 07
½Tr ¼ 6
40
7; d ¼ c2x þ c2y : (2)
0 1 05
x0 y0 z0 1
Then, the new coordinates of the mesh points are obtained
Fig. 2. Original input finite element model. using
296 E. Nart, A.O. Ayhan / European Journal of Mechanics A/Solids 30 (2011) 293e306

such that tetrahedral elements within a given radius in a spherical

zone are selected. It is also noted that in this step, a hole or gap is
generated in the original finite element model without the crack.

2.4. Step 4: removal of interior nodes

In this step, the interior nodes and corresponding tetrahedral

elements are removed from the chunk mesh so that the outer
boundary of the chunk mesh is defined by the triangular facets of
the existing chunk mesh. The importance of this step is to keep the
outer surface facets shared by the remaining global model without
the chunk the same so that it can readily be inserted back once the
Fig. 4. (a) Normal vector rotation about x axis, (b) intermediate normal vector rotation crack is introduced into the chunk model. Fig. 6 shows the selected
about z axis to align with free-surface normal.
outer surface facets.
8 9 8 09
> x> >
> x >
< >
> = < 0> = 2.5. Step 5: crack mouth lines
y y
¼ ½T 0 : (3)
>z>
> > >
> z >
: ; : > ; Crack area/surface is intersected with triangular facets on the
1 1
outer free-surface of the chunk mesh so that the outer crack face
When nx and ny are zero, the transformation matrix is given by lines (crack mouth lines) are determined (Fig. 7). To do that, triangle-


 to-triangle intersection procedure has to be performed (Fig. 8). By
½T ¼ ½Rq  Rg Rb¼p=2 ½Tr: (4) using the Möller (1997) algorithm, this is done in five steps:

2.3. Step 3: selection of chunk mesh 1. Compute plane equation of triangle 1,

The three-dimensional crack needs to be inserted into the
uncracked finite element model using its size, location and orien-
tation. This process needs to identify the elements in the model
that are intersected by the crack area so that these and neighboring
elements are modified and other necessary elements are added to
reflect the crack surfaces. Thus, isolating a smaller target zone for
crack insertion and element searches would be a more efficient way
to minimize computational time and to keep the mesh away from
crack region unchanged. This isolated region is called a “chunk”
mesh and shown in Fig. 5. Currently, the chunk mesh is formed
2. Compute plane equation of triangle 2,
3. Compute intersection line and project onto largest axis,
Two non-parallel planes will intersect and form a straight line,
which is parallel to both planes. The vector product of surface
normals of the planes yields the direction vector of the intersec-
tion line, but a point on the line is required to secure a unique line
equation. A convenient point on the line can be selected outside
the bounding box of the triangles. Let the plane equations be
n1 $p þ d1 ¼ 0; n2 $p þ d2 ¼ 0; (5)

Fig. 5. Chunk mesh to be used for crack insertion, (a) overall view, (b) close-up view of the crack region.

Fig. 6. Chunk mesh facets, (a) chunk model, (b) chunk outer free-surface, (c) chunk outer shared surface.
 E. Nart, A.O. Ayhan / European Journal of Mechanics A/Solids 30 (2011) 293e306
Fig. 7. Outer crack face lines (mouth lines).
where d1 and d2 are constants and
n1 ¼ a1 i þ b1 j þ c1 k; n2 ¼ a2 i þ b2 j þ c2 k;
p ¼ xi þ yj þ zk:
Eq. (6) defines normal vectors of the triangles and position
vector of a point on the intersection line. Furthermore, the
position vector on the intersection line can be defined with
respect to the position vector of a starting point, P0.
p ¼ p0 þ ln3 ;
where p is the position vector for any point on the intersection
line, p0 is the position vector perpendicular to the intersection
line, n3 is the unit vector along the line of intersection and l is
a scalar. The unit vector along the line of intersection is given by
n3 ¼ a3 i þ b3 j þ c3 k ¼ n1  n2 :
P0 must satisfy both plane equations.
n1 $p0 ¼ d1 ; n2 $p0 ¼ d2 ; n3 $p0 ¼ 0:
This yields three simultaneous equations, which can be solved for
the coordinates of point P0 (Vince, 2005).
4. Compute the intervals for each triangle,
5. Intersect the intervals.
After determining the intersecting lines, all lines are ordered,
resulting in the crack mouth lines.
Fig. 8. Triangle-to-triangle intersection.
297
2.6. Step 6: crack face boundaries
In this step, the crack mouth lines and crack front line (elliptical
in this example) are combined to form the overall boundary of the
crack surface to be meshed (Fig. 9). TriangleÓ code is used to mesh
the crack face. The generated triangles are stored to be used later in
volume mesh generation.
2.7. Step 7: crack surface and outer free-surface meshing
The resulting areas representing the crack surfaces and the outer
chunk free-surface are meshed two-dimensionally using TriangleÓ
(Fig. 10). To do that, the nodes on the two crack mouth lines are
slightly separated. The chunk outer free-surface boundary nodes are
transformed back to global xey plane and the crack mouth line nodes
are added to the definition of this area based on the method shown in
Fig. 9. The resulting free-surface facets and nodes are transformed
back to their real location and orientation, and stored to be used as
part of the updated boundary of the chunk mesh with crack included.
(6) 2.8. Step 8: re-arrangement of chunk mesh boundary
So far, all surfaces are meshed that can be used to form the
closed boundary of the chunk mesh with crack surfaces included. In
this step, the facets of crack surfaces, the outer free-surface and the
shared/common surface are combined and full boundary of the
cracked-chunk domain is defined (Fig. 11). In this process, crack
(7) faces are placed slightly open and connected at the ends to form
a pocket-like inclusion. In Fig. 11, separation of crack mouth lines is
exaggerated for better visualization. The resulting cracked-chunk
domain facets are shown in Fig. 12.
2.9. Step 9: volume meshing of chunk domain
(8)
Using the outer boundaries enclosing the chunk domain listed
above, volume meshing is performed using TetgenÓ. The result is
a tetrahedral finite element model of the chunk domain in which
(9) the three-dimensional crack is included with its two separated
surfaces. The output finite element mesh is shown in Fig. 13. In this
step, the slightly open tetra face nodes on crack faces are also
brought on top of each other.
2.10. Step 10: unification of chunk and remaining original model
meshes
From the previous step, the volume mesh of the cracked-chunk
domain is available. This mesh is, now, merged with the original
finite element mesh without the chunk region. It should be noted
that, in the crack insertion process, the positions of nodes on the
shared surface of the chunk domain are kept the same. Therefore,
this unification is simply done my merging the two sets of dupli-
cated nodes on the chunk outer shared surface and the original
model’s chunk inner surface, i.e., declaring same node numbers for
coincident nodes. The output of this process step is a final finite
element mesh to be used in fracture analysis (Fig. 14).
2.11. Step 11: transfer of boundary conditions
As part of the process, the nodes with boundary conditions, e.g.,
forces, pressures, displacements, on the original finite element
model are book kept so that when the crack insertion is done and
finite element model is updated to include the crack, the boundary
conditions are transferred to the new finite element model. This is
the final step of the process before fracture analysis.
298 E. Nart, A.O. Ayhan / European Journal of Mechanics A/Solids 30 (2011) 293e306

Fig. 9. Combination of the crack mouth lines and crack front line.

Fig. 10. (a) Crack surface mesh, (b) chunk outer free-surface mesh.

3. Enriched finite element formulation
In Fig. 15, 10-noded tetrahedral enriched crack tip elements
having an edge or a point on an arbitrarily oriented crack front are
shown. The element with label EE is enriched crack tip element
that has an edge on the crack front, while those with EP have
a point on the crack front. The crack front is fully surrounded by
these types of elements sharing an edge or point with the crack
front. For an integration point at x, h and r local coordinates in the
enriched element, the displacements are given by

0 1 ! 0 1
X
m X
m X
ntip X
m
uðx; h; rÞ ¼ Nj ðx; h; rÞuj þ Z0 ðx; h; rÞ @fu ðx; h; rÞ  Nj ðx; h; rÞfuj A Ni ðGÞKIi þ Z0 ðx; h; rÞ @gu ðx; h; rÞ  Nj ðx; h; rÞguj A
j¼1 j¼1 i¼1 j¼1
! 0 1 !
X
ntip X
m X
ntip
 Ni ðGÞKIIi þ Z0 ðx; h; rÞ @hu ðx; h; rÞ  Nj ðx; h; rÞhuj A Ni ðGÞKIII
i
; ð10Þ
i¼1 j¼1 i¼1

0 1 ! 0 1
X
m X
m X
ntip X
m
vðx; h; rÞ ¼ Nj ðx; h; rÞvj þ Z0 ðx; h; rÞ @fv ðx; h; rÞ  Nj ðx; h; rÞfvj A Ni ðGÞKIi þ Z0 ðx; h; rÞ @gv ðx; h; rÞ  Nj ðx; h; rÞgvj A
j¼1 j¼1 i¼1 j¼1
! 0 1 !
X
ntip X
m X
ntip
 Ni ðGÞKIIi þ Z0 ðx; h; rÞ @hv ðx; h; rÞ  Nj ðx; h; rÞhvj A Ni ðGÞKIII
i
; ð11Þ
i¼1 j¼1 i¼1
 E. Nart, A.O. Ayhan / European Journal of Mechanics A/Solids 30 (2011) 293e306
0 1
X
m X
m X
wðx; h; rÞ ¼ Nj ðx; h; rÞwj þ Z0 ðx; h; rÞ @fw ðx; h; rÞ 
j¼1 j¼1
! 0
X
ntip
 Ni ðGÞKIIi þ Z0 ðx; h; rÞ @hw ðx; h; rÞ 
i¼1
In Eqs. (10)e(12), Nj are the regular finite element shape functions,
uj, vj and wj are the nodal displacements, Z0 is a zeroing function
that varies between 0 and 1, m ¼ 10, and fu, gu, hu, fv, gv, hv, fw, gw and
hw are obtained from the analytically known functions in the
asymptotic crack tip displacement expression and represent the
mode-I, mode-II and mode-III displacement components trans-
formed from local (primed axes in Fig. 15) to the global coordinate
system. For the evaluation of asymptotic crack field terms, given an
integration point within an enriched element, the corresponding
perpendicularly intersected crack front position is determined.
Since the three-dimensional crack fields are identical to those of
plane strain conditions when evaluated within the planes
perpendicular to the crack front (Hartranft and Sih, 1973), the
corresponding local coordinate system is positioned such that the
local (primed) xey plane is perpendicular and local z axis is
tangential to the crack front (Fig. 15). KIi, KIIi and KIIIi in Eqs. (10)e
(12) are the unknown nodal stress intensity factors for the crack
front nodes within the element and  Pthe neighboring  nodes on the
crack front. Therefore, the term ntip
i¼1 i
N ðGÞKI;II;III
i describes the
variation of the stress intensity factors along the whole crack front
in a piecewise fashion, in which ntip is 3 for the quadratic enriched
element. The local isoparametric coordinate G varies between 1
and 1.
Fig. 11. The boundary of chunk before meshing in three dimensions with crack
included.
Fig. 12. Surface facets of the chunk domain, (a) crack surface and outer free-surface, (b) inside view of chunk domain, (c) closed boundary of chunk domain.
299
! 0 1
ntip X
m
Nj ðx; h; rÞfwj A Ni ðGÞKIi þ Z0 ðx; h; rÞ @gw ðx; h; rÞ  Nj ðx; h; rÞgwj A
i¼1 j¼1
1 !
X
m X
ntip
Nj ðx; h; rÞhwj A Ni ðGÞKIII
i
: ð12Þ
j¼1 i¼1
Computation of stiffness matrices of enriched elements includes
derivatives of the above displacement fields. These derivatives for
a quadratic tetrahedral enriched element are the same as those
given in (Ayhan and Nied, 2002). Further details related to transi-
tion elements and integration of tetrahedral enriched elements are
given in Ayhan (2011) and not repeated here. Once the element
stiffness matrices for all elements in the model are computed, they
are included in the solution phase to obtain the nodal displace-
ments and stress intensity factors on the crack front nodes without
any post-processing efforts.
4. Numerical examples
Having explained the crack insertion method into an uncracked
finite element model built using fully unstructured mesh, numerical
examples are presented in this section that show the finite element
models with different crack shape and sizes and validate them from
a mesh compatibility and fracture analysis perspective. First, surface
crack models are generated with different crack aspect ratios and
plate thicknesses and tested for mesh continuity. To further test the
crack insertion method and the resulting finite element mesh, these
models are analyzed through conventional stress analyses and
fracture analyses using enriched finite elements. Then, fracture
solutions obtained from tetrahedral enriched finite elements are
compared to those available in the literature.
4.1. Mode-I surface cracks in finite-thickness plates
Using the crack insertion method described in the previous
section, different models for surface cracks in finite-thickness
plates are generated including mode-I cracks and those with
deflection and inclination angles, which cause mixed-mode frac-
ture conditions. Fig. 16 depicts a mode-I surface crack in a finite-
thickness plate under uniform tension with a length of 2c on the
surface and a depth of a. Using the crack insertion method, nine
different models are generated with different a/c and a/t cases and
these meshes are checked against any mesh compatibility issues. In
Figs. 17e19, close-up cut-views of the generated meshes near crack
surfaces are shown for a/c ¼ 0.2, 0.5 and 0.8, respectively. Each
figure includes meshes for three-different plate thickness, a/t, cases
as well. As can be seen from these mesh pictures the models fully
300 E. Nart, A.O. Ayhan / European Journal of Mechanics A/Solids 30 (2011) 293e306

Fig. 13. Volume mesh of the cracked-chunk domain, (a) overall view, (b) cut-plane view of crack region.

Fig. 14. The unified finite element model with crack inserted, (a) overall view, (b) close-up view of crack region.

consist of tetrahedral elements and that reasonably refined
elements exist along the crack front and on the crack surfaces. All
models are also checked against any mesh incompatibilities or
undesired discontinuities using ANSYSÔ (2009). Therefore, it is
concluded that the fracture models generated are reasonable for
stress and fracture analyses. Having performed basic mesh checks
on the finite element models with cracks included, the first cracked
plate model under uniform tensile loading (a/c ¼ 0.2, a/t ¼ 0.2) is
also run through a stress/deformation analysis using ANSYSÔ to
check the deformed shape and stress contours for any unrealistic
distribution. Fig. 20a shows the overall deformed shape of the
cracked plate and relative effective stress distribution, whereas
Fig. 20b focuses on the crack region. It can readily be observed from
these figures that the deformed shape and stress distributions are
as expected from a plate with a mode-I surface crack, e.g., defor-
mation and stress contours are symmetric and stress contours
represent the typical “butterfly-shaped” distribution near crack
front. Therefore, the finite element mesh, which is obtained by
inserting a crack into an uncracked model, can be said to be valid for
deformation and stress analysis.
Next, for the nine mode-I fracture models generated by the
crack insertion method, stress intensity factor solutions by
enriched finite elements (Ayhan and Nied, 1999, 2002; Ayhan, 1999,
2011) are presented. Different solutions exist in the literature for
the surface crack problem depicted in Fig. 16. Among them, those of
Newman and Raju (1986) are still the most widely used for
comparison and validation purposes. In the examples presented,
the plate width and height are taken as W ¼ H ¼ 5c for cracks with
a/c  1 and W ¼ H ¼ 5a for those with a/c > 1. Figs. 21e23 show the
comparisons of normalized SIF distributions obtained using tetra-
hedral enriched crack tip elements with those from empirical
equation of Newman and Raju (1986) for, respectively, a/c ¼ 0.2, 1.0
and 2.0. In each graph, three-different plate thickness cases,
a/t ¼ 0.2, 0.5 and 0.8, are included. The normalization of results is
performed by

y’
x’
Y
EP z’
EE
EP
X

Fig. 15. 10-Noded tetrahedral enriched crack tip elements having an edge or a point on
the crack front. Fig. 16. Surface crack in a finite-thickness plate under uniform tension.
 E. Nart, A.O. Ayhan / European Journal of Mechanics A/Solids 30 (2011) 293e306 301

Fig. 17. Cut-views of near-crack-surface meshes for a/c ¼ 0.2, (a) a/t ¼ 0.2, (b) a/t ¼ 0.5,
(c) a/t ¼ 0.8.

rffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
pa
K1 N ¼ s0 ; (13)
Q
where

(
1 þ 1:464ða=cÞ1:65 if ða=cÞ  1;
Q ¼ (14)
1 þ 1:464ðc=aÞ1:65 if ða=cÞ > 1:

The parametric angle ranges from 0 on the free-surface

(c location) to 90 at the deepest crack penetration point (a loca-
tion). It is observed from these comparison graphs that very good
agreement exists between enriched elements and the empirical
equation of Newman and Raju (1986) for, especially, a/c ¼ 0.2 and
2.0. For these cases, the differences are within a couple percent. For
a/c ¼ 1.0, the average difference along the crack front is nearly 5%. It
is also noted that in each a/c case, decreasing plate thickness for the
same crack depth size has an increasing effect on the normalized
stress intensity factor along the crack front, i.e., as a/t increases, Fig. 18. Cut-views of near-crack-surface meshes for a/c ¼ 1.0, (a) a/t ¼ 0.2, (b) a/t ¼ 0.5,
K1_N also increases along the crack front. (c) a/t ¼ 0.8.
302 E. Nart, A.O. Ayhan / European Journal of Mechanics A/Solids 30 (2011) 293e306

Fig. 20. Deformed shape and relative distribution of effective stresses, (a) overall view,
(b) close-up view.

Fig. 21. Normalized mode-I SIF distribution along the front of a surface crack in
a finite-thickness plate under uniform tension, a/c ¼ 0.2.

4.2. Mixed-mode surface cracks in finite-thickness plates

In this section, fracture solutions are presented for inclined and

deflected surface cracks in finite-thickness plates using the described
crack insertion method and tetrahedral enriched elements. In
a previous study, the validation of mixed-mode stress intensity
factors obtained from tetrahedral enriched elements is done for an

Fig. 19. Cut-views of near-crack-surface meshes for a/c ¼ 2.0, (a) a/t ¼ 0.2, (b) a/t ¼ 0.5,
Fig. 22. Normalized mode-I SIF distribution along the front of a surface crack in
(c) a/t ¼ 0.8.
a finite-thickness plate under uniform tension, a/c ¼ 1.0.
 E. Nart, A.O. Ayhan / European Journal of Mechanics A/Solids 30 (2011) 293e306 303

inserting a 45 -inclined semi-circular surface crack into the mesh

(a/t ¼ 0.2). The resulting finite element model for this problem is
shown in Fig. 25. Fig. 26 shows the mixed-mode stress intensity
factor distributions along the crack front using tetrahedral enriched
elements (this study) and structured mesh (Ayhan, 2004) along the
crack front. As can be seen from this figure, very good agreement
exists between the two sets of solutions for all three modes of the
stress intensity factor. Next, the problem of a deflected surface crack
in a finite-thickness plate under uniform tension is considered
(Fig. 27). As shown in Fig. 27, the crack plane makes a deflection
angle, a, with the global XeZ plane. A complete set of solutions are
presented for deflected surface cracks as well in a previous study

Fig. 23. Normalized mode-I SIF distribution along the front of a surface crack in
a finite-thickness plate under uniform tension, a/c ¼ 2.0.

inclined penny-shaped crack contained in a large round bar under

uniform tension using its theoretical solution (Ayhan, 2011). Fig. 24
depicts an inclined surface crack in a finite-thickness plate under
uniform tensile loading. As shown in this figure, the crack plane
makes an inclination angle, b, with the global XeZ plane. A complete
set of solutions for semi-circular inclined cracks including inclination
angles ranging from 0 to 75 and plate thicknesses from a/t ¼ 0.2 to
0.8 are given in Ayhan (2004), which used structured meshes along
the crack front. Now the same problem is solved using a fully
unstructured mesh including the crack front region. The unstruc-
tured fracture model is built by taking the same uncracked plate
finite element model as the previously solved mode-I problem and

Fig. 24. A semi-elliptical inclined surface crack in a plate under remote uniform tensile Fig. 25. Finite element mesh for inclined semi-circular crack, (a) overall view, (b)
loads. cross-sectional view of crack region, (c) close-up view of crack region.
304 E. Nart, A.O. Ayhan / European Journal of Mechanics A/Solids 30 (2011) 293e306

(crack front) model for all three modes. Thus, in the light of above
comparisons, it is stated that the crack insertion method detailed in
this study generates accurate mixed-mode fracture models and that
the tetrahedral enriched elements provide accurate and flexible way
for their solution. Finally, an inclined and deflected semi-circular
surface crack in a finite-thickness plate under uniform tension is
studied by first taking the same uncracked finite element model used
in the mode-I crack problem, and inserting a semi-circular surface
crack into the mesh such that the crack plane is inclined and

Fig. 26. Normalized mixed-mode stress intensity factors for an inclined semi-circular
surface crack in a plate under uniform tension, a/t ¼ 0.2, b ¼ 45 .

(Ayhan, 2004) using structured mesh near the crack front. Here, the
same problem is solved for a deflection angle of a ¼ 45 and a/t ¼ 0.2
using completely tetrahedral elements including the crack front
region. The finite element mesh of the deflected surface crack model,
which is generated by crack insertion into the same uncracked mesh
used for mode-I crack problem, is shown in Fig. 28. The comparisons
of mixed-mode stress intensity factor distributions from the two sets
of solutions for this problem are presented in Fig. 29. It is observed
from this figure that very good agreement exists between SIFs
obtained from the all-tet model and those from the structured-mesh

Fig. 27. A semi-elliptical deflected surface crack in a plate under remote uniform Fig. 28. Finite element mesh for a deflected semi-circular crack, (a) overall view, (b)
tensile loads. cross-sectional view of crack region, (c) close-up view of crack region.
 E. Nart, A.O. Ayhan / European Journal of Mechanics A/Solids 30 (2011) 293e306
Fig. 29. Normalized mixed-mode stress intensity factors for a deflected semi-circular
surface crack in a plate under uniform tension, a/t ¼ 0.2, a ¼ 45 .
Fig. 30. Edged lines of finite element mesh for an inclined and deflected semi-circular
surface crack in a plate, a/t ¼ 0.2, a ¼ b ¼ 45 , (a) front view, (b) perspective view.
Fig. 31. Normalized mixed-mode stress intensity factors for an inclined and deflected
semi-circular surface crack in a plate under uniform tension, a/t ¼ 0.2, a ¼ b ¼ 45 .
305
deflected at the same time, i.e., a ¼ b ¼ 45 . The edge lines of the
finite element model developed for this problem are shown in
Fig. 30. The resulting normalized mixed-mode stress intensity factor
distributions obtained using fully unstructured mesh are shown in
Fig. 31. It is readily seen from this figure that the mode-I stress
intensity factor decreases along the crack front, while its mode-II and
mode-III components increase in most of the front compared to the
normalized SIF solutions of inclined and deflected surface cracks
(Figs. 26 and 29). It is also observed that in contrast to the deflected
and inclined cracks, symmetry in SIF distributions does not exist
anymore.
5. Conclusion
Today’s most existing finite element methods for analyses of
three-dimensional fracture problems require not only special
meshes near crack front but also some level of post-processing of
the solution. Depending on the complexity of part and crack
geometries, these tasks can take too long times. Thus, in the absence
of time saving and accurate analysis methods and tools, in practice,
approximating the three-dimensional crack problem with a more
conservative solution may be preferred for some complex applica-
tions. In this study, a method is presented for generating three-
dimensional fracture models by taking an uncracked finite element
unstructured mesh and inserting a three-dimensional crack into it.
Then, this fracture model, which fully consists of tetrahedral
elements, is analyzed using a general-purpose fracture analysis
program incorporating tetrahedral enriched elements. In the crack
insertion method presented, first a zone enclosing crack surfaces is
selected (chunk zone) and taken out of the original finite element
model without the crack. Then, a planar three-dimensional crack
surface mesh is inserted into the chunk model, followed by its
integration back to the original remaining model without the chunk
zone. Finally, the models generated, which can include mixed-mode
fracture conditions, are tested for mesh continuity and compati-
bility and run through deformation/stress and fracture analyses.
These tests and analyses resulted in accurate deformation patterns
and stress intensity factor distributions. Thus, it is concluded the
crack insertion method presented and the employment of tetrahe-
dral enriched elements provide a new, accurate and efficient way to
solve three-dimensional fracture problems and are very suitable for
further developments in automatic crack growth simulations
including non-planar crack surface growth using fully unstructured
finite element meshes.
Acknowledgement
The financial support of The Scientific and Technological
Research Council of Turkey (Project No: 108M283) for this study is
gratefully acknowledged.
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