Time-dependent creep fracture using singular boundary elements

This paper presents a procedure for modelling singular crack tip regions of creeping, cracked structural components using singular boundary elements. These special boundary elements correctly simulate the time-dependent singular behaviour of stress and strain fields at the crack tip of creeping materials. The investigated structural components are considered to undergo time-dependent, two-dimensional creep deformation and to be subjected to remote loading conditions. The deformation of the components is assumed to be described by the elastic power law creep model. Examples of various crack problems are investigated to illustrate the efficiency of the proposed singular boundary elements for analysing creep stress and strain distribution problems and for determining some important creep fracture parameters. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is demonstrated and its accuracy is compared with the results obtained by finite element solutions for different creep conditions.