Three-dimensional failure analysis by BEM using cells with embedded discontinuity activated during the nonlinear loading process

Resumo

Numerical simulation of brittle fracture of three-dimensional solids is addressed in this work by the
boundary element method (BEM) and the strong discontinuity approach (SDA). In this formulation, cracks are
treated using a non-geometric representation through the use of cells with embedded discontinuity. Into these cells,
the inelastic strain field is obtained as a result of the application of kinematic equations with discontinuities in the
displacement field (strong discontinuities) to standard continuum constitutive models, containing a softening law.
A reinterpretation of some parameters of the constitutive model is also performed to guarantee its compatibility to
the discontinuous kinematics. Since in the BEM only the internal regions where dissipative effects happen need
to be discretized into cells, crack propagation is driven by activations of such cells during the loading process,
followed by an expansion of the matrices that define the discrete model.