On a symplectic analytical singular element for cracks under thermal shock considering heat flux singularity

Abstract

In a precise numerical modelling of cracks under thermal shock, the singularity issue resulted from heat flux should also be considered in addition to the one resulted from stress. The assumptions of constant temperature distribution usually adopted in the existing studies may lead to significant error. The concerned problem involves the discretization in both space and time domains. Numerical error resulted from the singularity issues in the space domain may be accumulated in the time domain. Hence, a unified framework which integrates reliable methods for both space and time domains are desired. In the present contribution, the classic thermal stress problem is restudied under the Hamiltonian system and the eigen functions are obtained analytically. A symplectic analytical singular element (SASE) for thermal stress analysis is reformulated based on the existing ones for thermal conduction and stress analyses. The singularity issues of both stress and heat flux are considered. A unified framework is formed with the precise time domain expanding algorithm (PTDEA) for the time domain and the formulated SASE for the space domain. A self-adaptive technique is used for the PTDEA to improve the numerical efficiency. The time dependent fracture parameters i.e., heat flux intensity factors (HFITs) and the mixed mode thermal stress intensity factors (TSIFs) can be solved accurately without any post-processing. Numerical examples are given for verification and validation of the proposed method.