FRACTURE MECHANICS PARAMETER COMPUTATION USING GENERALIZED FINITE ELEMENT WITH DRILLING DEGREES OF FREEDOM

Abstract

This paper presents a virtual crack closure-integral method (VCCM) using a generalized finite element with drilling degrees of freedom (DOF). So far, the finite element with drilling DOF has been applied to elastic stress analysis etc. It is has not been applied to fracture mechanics analysis. When VCCM is applied to the generalized finite element, the contributions of drilling DOF to the energy release rate need to carefully be examined in relation with the deformation modes of crack. In this paper, we propose a VCCM formulation and some numerical results. They are compared with the theoretical solutions and with some other numerical ones. Finally, the validity of proposed VCCM is discussed.