Coupled thermo-mechanical field-enriched finite element method for simulating the thermal failure process of quasi-brittle solids

Abstract

Thermal loads and temperature changes significantly impact the deformation and fracture of quasi-brittle solids, and the computational simulation of such a process is challenging. In this paper, a coupled thermo-mechanical field-enriched finite element method (TM-FE-FEM) is proposed to simulate the thermal fracture process of quasi-brittle solids. The accuracy and correctness of the proposed coupled TM-FE-FEM are validated by four benchmark examples, and the ability to simulate thermal induced crack is validated by the plate containing single edge flaw under coupled thermo-mechanical loading. Finally, the thermal fracture process of the Lac du Bonnet (LdB) granite specimen is reproduced by the proposed method. It can be concluded from the numerical results that the proposed coupled TM-FE-FEM has the ability to simulate the processes of heat conduction, thermal deformation and thermal fracture in quasi-brittle solids.