In present investigation, a three-dimensional virtual crack closure-integral method (VCCM) to evaluate the energy release rate and the stress intensity factor has been developed. Present VCCM assumes the use of second order tetrahedral finite elements. The use of tetrahedral finite elements have became a sort of standard way in large scale three-dimensional finite element analyses, due to the recent advancement of automatic mesh generation software for tetrahedral elements. In this paper, theory, detailed procedures to evaluate the fracture parameters and the results of numerical analyses for mode I problems, are presented and the accuracy of proposed VCCM is critically reviewed.