EFFICIENT BOUNDARY ELEMENT ELASTOSTATIC ANALYSIS USING HETENYI'S FUNDAMENTAL SOLUTION.

The boundary element method (BEM) to analyze the stress intensity factors for a crack in dissimilar materials is developed using Hetenyi's solution as a fundamental solution of BEM. Since Hetenyi's solution, which is a solution for a point load in an infinite dissimilar plate, satisfies exactly the boundary condition at the interface, this method with the use of this solution does not require the discretization of the interface and only requires the division of elements on the boundary of a finite plate. Therefore it is expected that this method can give an accurate solution for a crack on and near the interface. Moreover, this solution includes Kelvin's solution and Mindlin's solution. After formulating and incorporating this solution in the BEM programs, several numerical results of the stress intensity factors for a crack in dissimilar materials as well as a homogeneous material are presented. The usefulness of this solution for BEM analysis is discussed.