Symmetric-Galerkin Boundary Element Transient Analysis of the DSIFs for the Interaction of a Crack with a Circular Inclusion

Abstract

A dynamic analysis of crack-inclusion interaction is described in this paper. The analysis employs a two-dimensional symmetric-Galerkin boundary integral formulation for multi-domain elastodynamic fracture analysis in the frequency domain. The multi-domain technique is based on the assumption of perfectly bonded inclusions. The numerical implementation of this boundary integral formulation is carried out with standard quadratic elements, allowing the use of an improved quarter-point element for accurately determining frequency responses of the dynamic stress intensity factors (DSIFs). To deal with singular and hypersingular integrals, the formulation is decomposed into two parts: the rst part is identical to that for elastostatics while the second part contains at most logarithmic singularities. The treatment of the elastostatic singular and hypersingular singular integrals employs an exterior limit to the boundary, while the weakly singular integrals in the second part are handled by Gauss quadrature. Time histories (transient responses) of the DSIFs are obtained in a post-processing step by applying the fast Fourier transform (FFT) and inverse FFT to the frequency responses of these DSIFs. Two numerical examples are presented for the computation of the DSIFs due to crack-inclusion interaction under two types of impact loading: Heaviside step loading and blast loading. The numerical results are consistent and conrm the well known crack tip shielding mechanism observed during the interaction between a crack and a much stier inclusion.