Growth and intersection of cracks using boundary-element analysis

Existing procedures which are available for the determination of the path traversed by a crack growing in a two-dimensional linear elastic body are limited to simple geometric configurations where the growth of all the crack tips is the same. In this paper, an important advance has been made; a crack may intersect other cracks, while a crack growing from a boundary may intersect other boundaries. Simulations of crack growth and intersections are performed for a number of configurations and computational procedures are given which control the rate of crack growth. In order to assess the robustness of these new extensions, cracks at or near circular holes and multiple cracks growing into an edge crack are considered, and detailed results given.