Numerical simulation of static cracks using extended isogeometric analysis

Abstract

In last decade, isogeometric analysis (IGA) has gained a lot of interest among the scientific community in solving various engineering problems. Nowadays, IGA has been extended to many scientific and engineering areas including fracture mechanics. This paper presents the simulation of stationary plane crack problems using extended isogeometric analysis (XIGA). In XIGA, both geometry and solution are approximated using NURBS basis functions. Heaviside function is used to model the crack face, while crack tip singularity is modeled using asymptotic crack tip enrichment functions. The various crack problems i.e. left edge crack, centre crack and double edge crack are solved using XIGA. The value of stress intensity factor (SIFs) is computed using domain based interaction integral approach. These simulations showed that SIF obtained using XIGA with higher order NURBS basis functions provide more accurate results as compared to those obtained by XFEM.