AN INVESTIGATION OF A DYNAMIC CRACK-PROPAGATION IN A 2-DIMENSIONAL VISCOELASTIC SOLID

The dynamic crack propagation in a two-dimensional viscoelastic solid is studied by using finite element method to model the specimen and modal analysis to obtain the solution of the equations of motion. As a fracture criterion it is assumed that the crack propagates with a constant velocity so that the energy release rate is determined as a function of the variable crack length for a given fixed load or fixed grip condition. It is proven numerically that the local energy release rate equals the global energy release rate which states the energy conservation law and shows the validity of the applied method.