An adaptive remeshing technique for predicting the growth of irregular crack fronts using p-version finite element analysis

Abstract

An adaptive remeshing technique using p-version finite element analysis was developed to predict the growth of cracks with highly irregular crack front geometries. In order to represent the shape of the crack front, the commonly used ellipse was replaced by a high-resolution spline. This enabled the growth of irregular crack fronts with local changes in curvature, convex and concave regions and small radii of curvature to be simulated iteratively using automatic mesh generation. The method was demonstrated for an irregular corner crack at a notch and the predicted crack front geometry was shown to be in good agreement with experimental results.