Analysis of Three-Dimensional Cracks with Independent Crack Mesh

In order to simulate the growth of arbitrarily shaped three-dimensional cracks, the finite element alternating method is extended. As the required solution for a crack in an infinite body, the symmetric Galerkin boundary element method formulated by Li and Mear is used. In the study, a crack is modeled as distribution of displacement discontinuities, and the governing equation is formulated as singularity-reduced integral equations. With the proposed method several example problems, such as a penny-shaped crack, an elliptical crack in an infinite solid and a semi-elliptical surface crack in an elbow are solved. And their growth under fatigue loading is also considered and the accuracy and efficiency of the method are demonstrated.