SEDL / STP / STP1131-EB / STP23712S

Traction Boundary Integral Equation (BIE) Formulations and Applications to Nonplanar and Multiple Cracks

Cruse, TA
H. Fort Flowers Professor, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN

Novati, G
Assistant professor, Politecnico di Milano, Milan,

Pages: 19    Published: Jan 1992

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Abstract

The hypersingular Somigliana identity for the stress tensor is used as the basis for a traction boundary integral equation (BIE) suitable for numerical application to nonplanar cracks and to multiple cracks. The variety of derivations of hypersingular traction BIE formulations is reviewed and extended for this problem class. Numerical implementation is accomplished for piecewise-flat models of curved cracks, using local coordinate system integrations. A nonconforming, triangular boundary element implementation of the integral equations is given. Demonstration problems include several three-dimensional approximations to planestrain fracture mechanics problems, for which exact or highly accurate numerical solutions exist. In all cases, the use of a piecewise-flat traction BIE implementation is shown to give excellent results.