Dual BEM formulation applied to analysis of multiple crack propagation

The boundary element method (BEM) is used in this paper for modelling multiple crack propagation in two-dimensional domains. The formulation adopted is based on the dual BEM, in which singular and hyper-singular integral equations are used. An iterative scheme is proposed in order to predict the crack growth path and the crack length increment at each load step. This scheme is accurate enough to simulate localisation and coalescence phenomena, which is the main contribution of this paper. The displacement correlation technique is used to evaluate the stress intensity factors and the theory of maximum circumferential stress is adopted to determine the crack propagation angle and the equivalent stress intensity factor. One application is presented in order to illustrate the robustness and applicability of the proposed model. © (2013) Trans Tech Publications, Switzerland.