A meshfree variational multiscale methods for thermo-mechanical material failure

A meshless variational multiscale methods for thermo-mechanical material failure is presented. Fracture is modeled by partition of unity enrichment. The displacement field and temperature field is enriched with step-functions and appropriate crack tip enrichment accounting for fine-scale features. The topology of the crack is modeled taking advantage of the level set method. The advantage of using a meshless method instead of finite elements is the ease in treating highly curved cracks with very coarse meshes due to the higher continuity of the meshless method. Moreover, the higher continuity results also in a smoother and more accurate stress field avoiding eratic fracture patterns. The method is applied to several benchmark problems and compared to analytical results, reference solutions and experimental data to demonstrate its robustness and efficiency. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.