CRACK GROWTH ANALYSIS IN QUASI-BRITTLE MATERIALS USING A NON-LINEAR BOUNDARY ELEMENT FORMULATION

Resumo

This paper addresses to analysis of crack propagation in quasi-brittle materials using the boundary element method (BEM). BEM has been widely used to solve many complex engineering problems, especially those where its mesh dimension reduction includes advantages in the modelling. The non-linear formulations developed are based on the dual BEM, in which singular and hyper-singular integral equations are adopted. The first formulation uses the concept of constant operator, in which the corrections on the non-linear system of equations are performed only by applying appropriate tractions along the crack surfaces. The second proposed BEM formulation is an implicit technique based on the use of a tangent operator. This formulation is accurate, stable and always requires less iterations to reach the equilibrium within a given load increment in comparison with the classical approach. Examples of problems of crack growth are shown to illustrate the performance of these two formulations.

Keywords: Boundary element method. Non-linear formulation. Tangent operator.

LEONEL, E. D.; VENTURINI, W. S. Crack growth analysis in quasi-brittle materials using a non-linear Boundary Element Formulation. Cadernos de Engenharia de Estruturas, São Carlos, v. 12, n. 57, p. 81-94, 2010. ISSN: 1809-5860.