Simulation of Dynamic Interface Fracture using Spectral Boundary Integral Method

Abstract

Simulation of three-dimensional dynamic fracture events constitutes one of the most challenging topics in the field of computational mechanics. Spontaneous dynamic fracture along the interface of two elastic solids is of great importance and interest to a number of disciplines in engineering and science. Applications include dynamic fractures in aircraft structures, earthquakes, thermal shocks in nuclear containment vessels and delamination in layered composite materials. This thesis presents numerical modeling of laboratory experiments on dynamic shear rupture, giving an insight into the experimental nucleation conditions. We describe a methodology of dynamic rupture simulation using spectral boundary integral method, including the theoretical background, numerical implementation and cohesive zone models relevant to the dynamic fracture problem. The developed numerical implementation is validated using the simulation of Lamb's problem of step loading on an elastic half space and mode I crack propagation along a bonded interface. Then the numerical model and its comparison with experimental measurements is used to investigate the initiation procedure of the dynamic rupture experiments. The inferred parameters of the initiation procedure can be used in future studies to model the experimental results on supershear transition and rupture models.