Application of the extended finite element method to elastic-plastic fracture problems

The extended finite element method (X-FEM) is applied to elastic-plastic analysis. X-FEM can model the domain without explicitly meshing the crack surface. This method can treat arbitrary cracks independent of the mesh and crack growth without remeshing. Therefore, X-FEM can be used to efficiently perform stress analyses in the field of fracture mechanics. This paper describes the application of X-FEM to stress analyses considering materially non-linear behaviour. As numerical examples, the problem of a plate with a crack is solved under the two-dimensional plane strain condition and the obtained results are compared with those obtained using conventional finite element analysis.