Elastic crack growth in finite elements with minimal remeshing

TLDR

The paper presents a minimal remeshing finite element method for crack growth. The method uses discontinuous enrichment functions to model the crack, allowing arbitrary alignment within the mesh and requiring remeshing only away from the crack tip for highly curved cracks. The method achieves excellent accuracy across a wide range of two‑dimensional crack problems. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Abstract

A minimal remeshing finite element method for crack growth is presented. Discontinuous enrichment functions are added to the finite element approximation to account for the presence of the crack. This method allows the crack to be arbitrarily aligned within the mesh. For severely curved cracks, remeshing may be needed but only away from the crack tip where remeshing is much easier. Results are presented for a wide range of two-dimensional crack problems showing excellent accuracy. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.