APPLYING OF EXTENDED FINITE ELEMENT METHOD FOR CALCULATING STRESS INTENSITY FACTOR

Abstract

Finite element method is a very powerful numerical method to predict and model mechanical behavior of material and structure. However, in some cases finite element method is more complicated like the modeling of moving discontinuities, hence the need to update the mesh to match the geometry of discontinuity. Extended finite element method (XFEM) allows us a new technique to modeling crack independently of the mesh; hence it is no need to remesh during propagation of the crack. In this paper, an extended finite element method is used to calculate stress intensity factor. It’s important parameter when we predict the direction of crack in the event of crack stops propagation.