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Multiple cohesive crack growth in brittle materials by the extended Voronoi cell finite element model

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Abstract

This paper is aimed at modeling the propagation of multiple cohesive cracks by the extended Voronoi cell finite element model or X-VCFEM. In addition to polynomial terms, the stress functions in X-VCFEM include branch functions in conjunction with level set methods and multi-resolution wavelet functions in the vicinity of crack tips. The wavelet basis functions are adaptively enriched to accurately capture crack-tip stress concentrations. Cracks are modeled by an extrinsic cohesive zone model in this paper. The incremental crack propagation direction and length are adaptively determined by a cohesive fracture energy based criterion. Numerical examples are solved and compared with existing solutions in the literature to validate the effectiveness of X-VCFEM. The effect of cohesive zone parameters on crack propagation is studied. Additionally, the effects of morphological distributions such as length, orientation and dispersion on crack propagation are studied.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mechanical Engineering, The Ohio State University, 650 Ackerman Road, Columbus, OH, 43202, USA

    Shanhu Li & Somnath Ghosh

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  1. Shanhu Li
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  2. Somnath Ghosh
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Correspondence to Somnath Ghosh.

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Li, S., Ghosh, S. Multiple cohesive crack growth in brittle materials by the extended Voronoi cell finite element model. Int J Fract 141, 373–393 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10704-006-9000-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10704-006-9000-2

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