Free Mesh Method with Gift-wrapping Method and Its Application to Crack Propagation Analysis

Abstract

Crack analysis using the improved free mesh method (FMM) is presented. In the fracture mechanics, the computational grids must be refined frequently with propagation of cracks. However, it is difficult to carry out mesh generation on parallel computers in general. In the present method, the finite element mesh is generated in a local area around each node, so that both of pre-processing and main-processing can be divided into multiple processors in terms of nodes. The local elements generated by the proposed algorithm are founded on the constrained Delaunay triangulation, so that the mesh even for severe shapes such as cracks can be generated in a local manner. A numerical example shows that sharp crack propagation can successfully be analyzed by the present method.