Fatigue crack propagation analysis with the adaptive finite element mesh generator

The numerical simulation of the fatigue crack propagation in a non-symmetrical fracture mechanics' specimen is presented in this paper. The procedure is automatic to that point that only the specimen's geometry, the starting point of the crack and material parameters are needed as inputs and the output of the simulation is, among other things, a change in compliance, the crack path and the functions K-I (a), K-II (a), N (a), i.e. stress intensity factors and number of cycles depending on the crack length. The finite element method is used in the calculations. Crack growth is simulated in a series of crack increments of finite size. A finite element mesh is automatically generated after each crack increment. Numerical results are compared to the results of the experiment on a specimen with non-standard geometry. During the experiment the crack length was measured automatically from the calculated compliance of the specimen.