Comput. Methods Appl. Mech. Engrg.

233236 (2012) 6880

Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect

Comput. Methods Appl. Mech. Engrg.

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/cma

The singular edge-based smoothed nite element method for stationary

dynamic crack problems in 2D elastic solids
P. Liu a, T.Q. Bui b,, Ch. Zhang b, T.T. Yu a, G.R. Liu c, M.V. Golub d
a
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Hohai University, Nanjing 210098, PR China
b
Department of Civil Engineering, University of Siegen, Paul-Bonatz-Strasse 9-11, D-57076 Siegen, Germany
c
University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH 45221-0070, USA
d
Institute for Mathematics, Mechanics and Informatics, Kuban State University, Krasnodar 350040, Russia

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: In this paper, the recently developed singular edge-based smoothed nite element method (sES-FEM) is
Received 13 December 2011 further developed for dynamic crack analysis in two-dimensional elastic solids. The objective of this work
Received in revised form 7 March 2012 is to provide an efcient and accurate numerical simulation tool for the dynamic fracture behaviors of
Accepted 12 April 2012
linear elastic solids in the framework of the strain smoothing approaches. Following this approach, the
Available online 24 April 2012
strains are smoothed and the system stiffness matrix is thus performed using the strain smoothing tech-
nique over the smoothing domains associated with the element edges. In order to accurately capture the
Keywords:
singular elds at the crack-tip, a two-layer singular 5-node crack-tip element is employed. The governing
Singular ES-FEM
Strain smoothing method
dynamic equations are transformed into a weakened weak (W2) form, which is then discretized into a
Dynamic fracture mechanics sES-FEM system of time-dependent equations to be solved by the unconditionally stable implicit New-
Dynamic stress intensity factors mark time integration method. To analyze the fracture behaviors of linear elastic solids, mixed-mode
dynamic stress intensity factors (DSIFs) are evaluated using the domain forms of the interaction integrals
in terms of the smoothing technique. Four test examples including pure mode-I and mixed-modes are
studied to validate the accuracy of the proposed method. The computed results for the normalized DSIFs
are compared with analytical and other numerical reference solutions in a wide range of benchmark
dynamic crack problems which shows high accuracy of the sES-FEM.
2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Of great importance in modeling fracture mechanics problems
is to accurately describe the singular elds near the crack-tip,
and in contrast to the static loading conditions, numerical simula-
tions of the dynamic fracture problems remain a challenging task
for many practical engineering applications. Understanding the dy-
namic fracture behaviors of a cracked body through the dynamic
stress intensity factors (DSIFs) is essential and an accurate compu-
tation of the DSIFs thus plays a crucial role in practices. In general,
the dynamic fracture mechanics studies cases in which the inertial
effects are taken into account and the responses are often caused
by the time-dependent loads. Because of the mathematical difcul-
ties, analytical approaches are often not feasible to solve general
dynamic fracture problems in practices, numerical methods are
thus required. Many different methods have been introduced in
the last decades to model such dynamic crack problems and among
them, the boundary element methods (BEM) [1] and the nite ele-
Corresponding author. Tel.: +49 2717402836; fax: +49 2717404074.
E-mail addresses: tinh.buiquoc@gmail.com (T.Q. Bui), c.zhang@uni-siegen.de
(Ch. Zhang).
ment methods (FEM) [24] are frequently applied by using special
singular elements.
In recent years, the strain smoothing technique has proposed by
Chen et al. [5,6] to stabilize the solutions of the nodal integrated
Galerkin mesh-free methods. The smoothing technique is later
incorporated into the FEM using cell-based smoothing domains,
which forms the smoothed nite element method (SFEM) [7]. Soon
after, different versions of the SFEM have been formulated by Lius
group including the n-side polygonal smoothed nite element
method (nSFEM) [8], the node-based smoothed nite element
method (NS-FEM) [9], the edge-based smoothed nite element
method (ES-FEM) [10], and so on. In particular, the NS-FEM faces
to the problem of the temporal instability, and the ES-FEM is thus
devoted to overcome such difculty by creating the smoothing do-
mains constructed based on the element edges instead. The advan-
tages by using the ES-FEM lie in the fact that it is much more
accurate than the linear FEM using the same mesh and even more
accurate than the FEM using quadrilateral elements. More recently,
the ES-FEM has been improved signicantly by introducing a spe-
cial singular triangular element associated with the smoothing do-
mains (further on named as sES-FEM), which has been recently
applied to accurately modeling the singular stress eld near the

0045-7825/$ - see front matter 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cma.2012.04.008
 P. Liu et al. / Comput. Methods Appl. Mech. Engrg. 233236 (2012) 6880 69

crack-tips in linear elastic fracture mechanics [11,12], bi-material which is proposed to accurately capture the singular elds near the
interface cracks [13], quasi-static crack growth [14], crack analysis crack-tip [1116]. The edge-based strain smoothing technique is
in anisotropic media [15], and elastic-plastic fracture problems not repeated here and one can nd the details in [10]. In addition,
[16]. a well established formulation of the sES-FEM using a singular 5-
On the other hand, the extended nite element method (X-FEM) node crack-tip element developed for linear elastic fracture prob-
[17,18] has introduced recently as a very powerful numerical tool lems can also be found in [11,12]. In order to make the paper
for modeling arbitrary discontinuities. It has been increasingly self-contained, we will briey describe some critical issues of the
applied to a wide range of engineering problems including the sES-FEM and its extension to the elastodynamic crack problems.
dynamic fracture mechanics problems, e.g., see [19,20]. The incor-
poration of the strain smoothing technique into the X-FEM has also 2.1. Governing equations
attempted to the linear elastic fracture mechanics problems, e.g.,
see [2123]. Obviously, the smoothed X-FEM approach is denitely Consider a two-dimensional (2D), homogeneous, isotropic and
very promising but it belongs to another category and quite differ- linear elastic solid X 2 R2 bounded by a boundary CC Cu [ Ct
ent from the sES-FEM presented in the present work. and Cu \ Ct 0 containing an initial traction-free crack Cc. In
The high accuracy of the fracture parameters by using the sES- the presence of the body forces fb, the cracked solid satises the
FEM is due to many inherent advantages as found in the previous equations of motion in a strong form [24,25]:
works, e.g., see [1116,2123]. For instance, using smoothing tech-
o2 u
niques can decrease the overly-stiff behavior of the FEM and pro- r  r fb q in X; 1
duce more accurate results, no mapping technique is required ot 2
and the stress singularity can be recovered by a simple point-inter- where r is the divergence operator, r is the Cauchy stress tensor, q
polation method with extra basis functions of proper factional or- denotes the mass density, t indicates the time, and u is the vector of
der polynomials, the derivatives of the shape functions are not the displacements. The essential and natural boundary conditions
required for computing the stiffness matrix in the numerical mod- are given, respectively, by
el, the intermediate nodes generally are proposed to be placed any-
 x; t on Cu ;
ux; t u 2a
where in the edges of the singular elements and not be xed at a
quarter of lengths to the crack-tip as in the FEM, high convergence, r  n f t on Ct ; 2b
and so on. However, most of the previous works using the sES-FEM r  n 0 on Cc ; 2c
have considered for static loading conditions, but not yet at-
tempted to the dynamic loading ones, to the best knowledge of with n being the outward unit normal vector dened on the bound-
the authors. The objective of this paper is to further develop the  dening the vector of prescribed displacements on
ary C, while u
sES-FEM for modeling the dynamic crack problems in 2D elastic the displacement boundary Cu. The initial conditions are specied
solids. As a result, the motivation of tackling this task is due to as:
the fact that the inertia forces in case of the dynamic loads can  0;
ux; t 0 u 3a
cause higher stresses in the vicinity of a crack-tip than the static
_
ux; _ 0
t 0 u 3b
loads. Furthermore, dynamic loads are frequently present in many
practical engineering problems. In this work, a base mesh of the in which, u  and u_ are the initial displacements and velocities,
linear triangular elements and a special singular 5-node crack tip respectively, and ft represents the prescribed traction vector on
element are used. The implicit Newmark time integration scheme the traction boundary Ct. The stress tensor r is dened in terms
is implemented in the sES-FEM, which enables us to keep the sta- of the strain tensor e via the generalized Hookes law:
bility of the method and to accurately compute the mixed-mode
DSIFs through the domain-form of the interaction integral by r De; 4
means of the strain smoothing technique. where D is the matrix of elastic constants depending on Youngs
A detailed study is conducted to examine the performance of modulus E and Poissons ratio m, which is dened for the plane
the sES-FEM for a wide range of the dynamic crack problems in stress and plane strain states by
2D elastic solids, where the crack is assumed to be stationary 2 3
and not propagating. In order to validate the accuracy of the meth-
1 m 0
E 6
od, numerical results for the DSIFs are then compared with analyt- D 4 m 1 0 7
5 plane stress;
1  m2 1m
ical and other available numerical solutions. In some cases, 0 0 2
solutions based on the standard X-FEM are additionally used to 2 m 3 5
1 1m
0
further conrm the accuracy of the proposed approach. The paper E1  m 6 m
D 4 1 0 7
5 plane strain:
is organized as follows. Singular ES-FEM for elastodynamic crack 1 m1  2m 1m 12m
problems will be presented in Section 2 including the dynamic 0 0 21v

governing equations, the basic idea of the sES-FEM, the weak-form

and the discretized equations as well as the time integration
scheme. The computations of the interaction integral and the dy-
namic stress intensity factors are described in Section 3. Then, sev-
eral numerical examples for impact dynamic loads are presented
and the computed results are discussed in details in Section 4. Fi-
nally, some conclusions obtained from the present work are drawn
in the last section.
2. Singular ES-FEM for elastodynamic crack problems
Basically speaking, the sES-FEM is an improved version of the
standard ES-FEM by handling a special singular crack-tip element,
In Eq. (4), rT = {rxx ryy sxy} is the stress vector containing the stress
components, and eT = {exx eyy cxy} is the vectorial form of the strain
tensor which is related to the displacements by the compatibility
equation given by
e rs ux; 6
s
where r is the symmetric gradient of the displacement eld.
2.2. Fundamentals of the singular ES-FEM
A predened mesh of the computational domain is initially re-
quired for the present method. Let X be such a domain and discret-
ized into Ne non-gap and non-overlapping elements and Nn nodes.
70 P. Liu et al. / Comput. Methods Appl. Mech. Engrg. 233236 (2012) 6880
As shown in Fig. 1, each 3-node triangular element is divided into
three equal sub-triangular areas, and two sub-triangular areas of
the adjacent elements with the same edge form a smoothing do-
main. The compatible strain eld is however smoothed over the
Ns number of non-gap and non-overlapping smoothing domains
(SDs) associated with the edges of the elements. In regions that
are far away from the crack-tips, the 3-node triangular elements
are used as sketched by solid lines in Fig. 1. In this gure, dashed
lines represent the quadrilateral SDs constructed based on each
individual edge. Thus, the SDs associated with the inner edge k
named as Xsk are formed by connecting two end points of the inner
edge k and two centroids of the adjacent triangular elements. At
the boundary edges, the SDs are formed by just one-third region
of the triangular element. In the contrary, in areas around the
crack-tips i.e., Xstip , such conventional SDs scheme is not able to
adequately capture the singularity of the eld variables, and a spe-
cial singular 5-node crack-tip element (T5) is thus needed as for-
mulated in [11,12].
In this work, a scheme with two-layer triangular-element-
based smoothing domains as depicted in Fig. 2 is used to better
capture the singular elds. As shown in Fig. 2, one layer of the
SDs far away from the crack-tip includes the SD(1) to SD(7), and an-
other layer connects directly to the crack-tip i.e., from the SD(8) to
SD(14). We note that two types of the SDs are generated accordingly
as the inner smoothing domains (e.g., SD(2), SD(3) or SD(9)) and the
boundary smoothing domains (e.g., SD(1), SD(7) or SD(8)).
The most important issue in modeling the crack problems using
p
the nite element methods is to properly reproduce the 1= r
stress singularity in the vicinity of the crack-tip. It thus requires
the presence of an appropriate singular shape function to serve
the interpolation. In the sES-FEM, the singular T5 element can gen-
p p
erate such r displacement eld and hence ensure a 1= r singular
stress eld around the crack-tip. According to [1116], the stress
singularity at the crack-tip can be modeled by a simple point inter-
polation with enriched basis functions of the proper fractional or-
der polynomials.
For the displacement interpolation along the element edge, let
us add a node to each element edge of a triangular element con-
nected directly to the crack-tip, thus the crack-tip element now
has a total of 5 nodes. The location of the added node is the one
quarter length of the element edge from the crack-tip. Through this
setting, a component of the displacement eld, say, at any point of
interest on an edge connected directly to the crack-tip can be
approximated using:
Fig. 1. Construction of the edge-based strain smoothing domains for triangular
elements.
p
u c0 c1 r c2 r : 7
It must be noted that Eq. (7) represents only one of the components
of the displacement vector where r represents the radial coordinate
originated at the crack-tip, and the constants ci (i = 0, 1, 2) are
accordingly determined through the nodal displacements at nodes
1, 2, and 3 (i.e. u1, u2, u3). Solving the simultaneous system of three
equations for ci and substituting the computed constants back to Eq.
(7), after some manipulations we nally arrive at:
u /1 u1 /2 u2 /3 u3 ; 8
where /i (i = 1, 2, 3) are the shape functions for these three nodes on
the edge determined by
r r r
r r r r 2r r
/1 1 2  3 ; /2 4 4 ; /3  ; 9
l l l l l l
with l being the length of the element edge. Nevertheless, in a more
general way as stated in [12], the intermediate node in this ap-
proach can be placed at any position on the element edge through
a controllable factor, and it was found that no signicant effect of
the position of the intermediate node on the results is observed.
This conclusion ensures the exibility of the method and the fact
that we do not have to place the intermediate node at one-quarter
edge length as in the quadratic FEM.
In order to interpolate the displacements within a singular
crack-tip element, the displacement component u is however as-
sumed to be varied with r via Eq. (7) in the radial direction and lin-
early in the tangential direction. This assumption essentially
ensures the compatibility along the edges between the singular
T5 and the 3-node linear triangular elements. In terms of the stan-
dard ES-FEM formulation [10], only the shape function values at
Gaussian points along the boundary segments are used to compute
the smoothed strain gradient matrix, and this is performed simi-
larly to the sES-FEM in this study. However, it can be seen that
the sES-FEM involves not only the normal SDs far away from the
crack-tip, but also the crack-tip SDs (see Fig. 2). For the normal
SDs, only one Gaussian point on each boundary segment seems
adequately accurate because it is linearly compatible along the
boundary segments, whereas more Gaussian points must be used
for the segments of the crack-tip SDs in order to ensure the accu-
racy of the solutions, and this issue will be examined numerically
later in the numerical analysis.
As depicted in Fig. 3, the displacement components at the mid-
points of the lines 23 and 45 can be evaluated as:
1 1
uB1 u4 u5 ; uD1 u2 u3 : 10
2 2
Basically, there are two different types of the segments nearly along
the tangential direction (e.g., C22, 2C1, A14 and 4A2) and the radial
direction (e.g., C1A1 and C2A2), on which the shape functions need
to be constructed appropriately for Gaussian points. Using the dis-
placement interpolation along the edge element given in Eq. (8)
above but applied to the line 1-B1-D1 associated simultaneously
with Eq. (10), the interpolation of the displacement component at
any point on the line 1-B1-D1 can be expressed as:
1 1 1 1
u /1 u1 /3 u2 /3 u3 /2 u4 /2 u5 : 11
2 2 2 2
The same procedure is carried out for any point on the line
1  a  b, we nally arrive at:
u /1 u1 1  g/3 u2 g/3 u3 1  g/2 u4 g/2 u5 ; 12
da4 db2
where g
d44 d23
,
with dij being the distance between the two
points i and j, and the general form of the shape functions for the
interpolation at any point within the singular T5 crack-tip element
can be expressed as:
 P. Liu et al. / Comput. Methods Appl. Mech. Engrg. 233236 (2012) 6880 71

Fig. 2. Scheme of the two-layer triangular-element-based smoothing domains around the cracktip.

2.3. Weak-form and discretized equations

The approximation of the displacement eld is given by [24]:

X
ux Ni xdi ; 14
i2nen

where u = {ux uy}T is the vector of the displacements, nen is the set of
nodes of the element containing x = {x y}T, while di = {dxi dyi}T repre-
sents the vector of the nodal displacements, and Ni is the matrix of
the shape functions dened by
 
Ni x 0
Ni x ; 15
0 Ni x
where Ni(x) is the shape function for node i.
Fig. 3. Displacement interpolation within a ve-node crack-tip element (e.g., 14 By applying the edge-based smoothing technique over the do-
235) connected to the crack tip node #1.
main Xsk associated with the edge k to the compatibility equation
in Eq. (6) and simultaneously handling the approximated displace-
N1 /1 ; N2 1  g/3 ; N3 g/3 ; N4 ments in Eq. (14), the smoothed strain can then be written in ma-
trix form of nodal displacements as [1116]:
1  g/2 ; N5 g/2 : 13 X
ek B ;
 i xk d 16
i
Furthermore, a visualization of those ve shape functions in Eq. i2ns
k
(13) is also presented in Fig. 4 for a better view. The partition of
unity of all the shape functions at nodes of interest is observed. where nsk is the set of nodes associated with Xsk , xk represents the
 and B
location of any point of interest belonging to Xsk ; d  i xk de-
i
note, respectively, the nodal displacement vector and the smoothed
strain gradient matrix of Xsk associated with the ith node. The
smoothed strain gradient matrix is calculated by
2 3
bix xk 0
 i xk 6
B 4 0  x 7
b iy k 5 with
 x b
b  x
iy k ix k
Z
 1
bih xk s Ni xnh xdC; h x; y; 17
Ak Csk
R
in which Ask Xs dX is the area of the smoothing domain Xsk ; Csk is
k
boundary of the smoothing domain, and nh is the hth component
of the outward normal vector on the boundary Csk .
The discrete equations of the sES-FEM for the initial-boundary
value problem of Eqs. (1-3) are generated from the smoothed
Galerkin weak-form (a typical weakened weak, or W2 form [26]):
Z Z
qduT u dX deuT DeudX
X X
Z Z
b t
Fig. 4. Virtualization of the ve shape functions given in Eq. (13) for a singular ve- duT f dX duT f dC: 18
node triangular crack-tip element (e.g., 14235) as depicted in Fig. 3 X Ct
72 P. Liu et al. / Comput. Methods Appl. Mech. Engrg. 233236 (2012) 6880

Substituting the approximated displacements of Eq. (14) and the 2.4. Implicit time integration scheme
smoothed strains from Eq. (16) into the smoothed Galerkin weak-
form of Eq. (18), and involving the arbitrary virtual displacements, The Newmark time integration scheme has been widely used in
a system of the discretized algebraic equations without damping ef- structural dynamics analysis and it is also adopted in this study to
fect can be obtained as follows: solve the discrete dynamic equilibrium equations of the sES-FEM
at time t + Dt. Eq. (19) is thus rewritten as follows [24,27]:
d  sES-FEM  
M K d F; 19
d  tDt F
 sES-FEM d tDt
M tDt K 27
where d
 is the displacement vector of the nodes, d
 is the second
time derivative of the displacements or the accelerations, and the The accelerations in the Newmark method without damping effect
mass matrix M  and the nodal force vector F are dened, respec- are given by
tively, by   
M bDt2 K
 sES-FEM d 
tDt FtDt
Z  
2
 ij
M NTi qNj dX; 20  sES-FEM d
K _ t 1  2b Dt d
 t Dt d 
t
Z X
Z 2
i b t
F NTi xf dX NTi xf dC: 21 28
X Ct
in which Dt denotes the time-step and d _ represents the velocity
Based on the sES-FEM procedure, the entries in the sub-matrices of
 tDt is determined through Eq. (28), the corresponding
vector. Once d
 sESFEM in Eq. (19) can then be expressed
the global stiffness matrix K vectors of the displacements d  tDt and the velocities d_ tDt at the
as: time t + Dt can then be evaluated, respectively, as:
2
X
Ns
 tDt d t Dt d_ t 1  2b Dt d 
 bDt2 d
 sES-FEM
K s
K 22 d t tDt ; 29a
ij ij;k 2
k1
_ tDt d
d _ t 1  cDt d  
t cDt dtDt : 29b
in which the summation implies an assembly process, and K  s in
ij;k
Eq. (22) is the stiffness matrix associated with the smoothing do- In each time-step of the analysis, the values of the displacements,
main Xsk and can be calculated by velocities and accelerations are obtained based on the correspond-
ing known values from the previous time-step. This approach is an
Z X
Ns implicit direct integration scheme and the choice of c P 0:5 and
s
K  T DB
B  j dX  j As :
 T DB
B 23
ij;k i i k b P 0:25c 0:52 guarantees the unconditional stability with sec-
Xsk k1
ond-order accuracy. In all the numerical examples given in the fol-
Furthermore, the number of the SDs associated with the element lowing sections, the time-step Dt is set consistently so that
edges directly connected to the crack-tip can be divided into more acceptable solutions can be achieved.
than one sub-smoothing domains (S-SDs) [11,12], the stiffness ma-
trix of the whole model can be still achieved using Eqs. (22) and 3. Interaction integral and dynamic stress intensity factors
(23). The implementation of the strain matrix of the smoothing do-
main B  i in Eq. (17), however, needs a slight modication by using In this section, we use the domain-form of the interaction inte-
the sub-matrices of the strain matrix for the S-SDs, i.e. gral to evaluate the DSIFs [3,17,18,2731]. The analytical form of
the dynamic J-integral over a vanishingly small contour surround-
NSX
SDs
i 1
B As;m B
m 24
ing the crack tip can be expressed as:
s
Ak m1 k i Z

ouj
J lim Wd1i  rij ni dC
C0 !0 C0 ox1
associated with the edge k, where NS-SDs is the number of the S-SDs Z

per edge k while As;m  m is

stands for the area of the mth S-SD, and B ouj
k i  lim Wd1i  rij mi dC 30
the strain matrix of the mth S-SD: C0 !0 C0 ox1
2 3 with C0 being an arbitrary enclosing contour around the crack-tip,
 m x
b 0
ix k
6  m x 7 W 12 rij eij is the strain energy density, and i denotes the crack-tip
 m xk 6
B b0 k 7
i 4 iy 5 with opening direction, which is assumed to be coincident with the glo-
 m  m
biy xk bix xk bal x1-direction. Eq. (30) is not suitable for numerical implementa-
Z tion, a closed contour Cs as depicted in Fig. 5(a), i.e.,
 m x 1
b Ni xnm
ih k s;m h xdC; h x; y 25 Cs = C1 + C+ + C + C0 is thus formed with the aid of a weighting
Ak Cs;m
k function q that is unity on C0 and zero on C1:
Z   Z
in which Cs;m is the boundary of the mth S-SD of the same edge and ouj ou
k
nnk;m is the hth component of the outward normal vector on the
J rij  Wd1i qmi dC r2j j dC 31
Cs ox1 C C ox1
boundary Cs;m k .
By using the Gaussian integration along the segments of the Due to the assumption of the traction-free boundary condition on
boundary Cs;m the crack-faces, the last team in Eq. (31) can be omitted and by
k , we have:
applying the divergence theorem we obtain:
" #
N seg NX
X   m  Z   Z 

m 1
Gauss

b w N x n x h x; y ouj oq o ou o
ih
As;m
a;b i a;b h a;b ; 26 J rij  Wd1i dA rij j  W qdA:
k a1 b1 A ox1 oxi A oxi ox1 ox1
s;m 32
where Nseg is the number of segments of the boundary C NGauss is k ,
the number of Gaussian points used in each segment, wa,b is the cor- We now use the dynamic equilibrium equations and the strain-dis-
responding weight of Gaussian points, xa,b is the bth Gaussian point placement relations, after some manipulations, Eq. (32) can be ob-
on the ath segment of the boundary Cs;m
k tained as follows:
 P. Liu et al. / Comput. Methods Appl. Mech. Engrg. 233236 (2012) 6880 73

(a) (b)

Fig. 5. (a) The J-integral contour around a crack-tip, (b) selected elements used for computing the interaction integral in the element set of N deff and the three sub-parts of the
smoothing domains for each selected element associated with three edges.
Z  
ouj oq where Am eff is the domain of the mth element in the element set of
J rij  Wd1i dA
A ox1 oxi Ndeff . According to [13,15], each triangular element domain hosts
Z " ! # three sub-parts of the SDs associated with three edges, e.g., for ele-
o2 uj b ouj oui o2 ui
q 2 f q qdA: 33 ment domain Am s s s
eff , three sub-parts A1 ; A2 and A3 are involved as de-
A ot ox1 ot ox1 ot picted in Fig. 5(b). Only the strains are smoothed and thus constant
Two states of a cracked body are considered: State 1 as rij ; eij ; ui
1 1 1 in each part belonging to the three different SDs, thus the integra-
2 2 2
corresponds to the actual state and State 2 as rij ; eij ; ui is an aux- tion in Eq. (39) for one element is conducted by the summation of
iliary state derived by Westergaard and Williams for modes I and II those three sub-parts, which nally yields:
cracks [17,18]. The J-integral for the sum of the two states can be Neff 3 Z
d
2 1
!
X X ouj ouj oq
written as: I1;2 rij1 rij
2 1 2
 rij e dA
ij d1i
m1 n1 Asn ox1 ox1 oxi
J 12 J1 J 2 I1;2 34
Neff Z
d
1 2
!
where I (1,2)
is the interaction integral for States 1 and 2:
X o2 uj ouj
q qdA 40
Z 2 1
! m1 Am
eff
ot 2 ox1
1
ouj 2
ouj oq
I1;2 r ij r ij  W 1;2 d1i dA It is worth to note that the last term representing the dynamic effect
A ox1 ox1 oxi
! in Eq. (40) does not require any calculations in the SDs, it is thus cal-
Z 1 2
o2 uj ouj culated as usual.
q 2
qdA; 35
A ot ox1
4. Implementation aspects
and W(1,2) represents the interaction strain energy given by

W 1;2 rij
1 2
e r2 1 In this section, the key steps in the numerical implementation
ij ij eij 36
of the singular ES-FEM for stationary dynamic crack problems are
Alternatively, for a general mixed-mode crack the relationship be- outlined as follows:
tween the J-integral and the stress intensity factors is given by
( (1) Dene the problem domain containing a crack.
K 2I K 2II ~ E plane stress (2) Discretize the problem domain into a set of elements, in
J ; with E E
37
E~ ~
E plane strain which the node coordinates and the element connectivity
1m2
are thus dened.
Setting Eq. (34) and Eq. (37) equal leads to the following
(3) Create the normal smoothing domains far away from the
relationship:
crack-tip, and crack-tip smoothing domains.
 
1 2 1 2
2 K I K I K II K II (4) Loops over the smoothing domains
I1;2 38 (a) Condition 1: the smoothing domains are far away from
~
E the crack-tip
The DSIFs for the current state can be determined by selecting the Evaluate the smoothed gradient matrix and compute
State 2 appropriately as in [17,18]. the stiffness matrix accordingly.
In summary, for evaluating the DSIFs in a mixed-mode crack
problem, the interaction integral in Eq. (35) must be evaluated (b) Condition 2: the smoothing domains are connected to
rst, but in the sES-FEM this form however needs further calcula- the crack-tip
tion of the SDs. By doing that, the domain A is set to be the collec- Evaluate the smoothed gradient matrix and compute
tion of all elements (named as N deff as depicted in Fig. 5(b)) which the stiffness matrix accordingly.
have a node within a radius of rd, and thus Eq. (35) can be rewritten
as: (c) Assemble the static stiffness matrix and load vector of
! the current smoothing domain into the global static stiff-
XZ
Ndeff
ouj
2
ouj
1
oq ness matrix and force vector.
I1;2 rij1 rij
2 1 2
 rij e
ij d1i dA (d) Compute the mass matrix regardless of the smoothed
m1 Am
eff
ox1 ox1 oxi
domains, which can be carried out by using the same
Neff Z
d !
X o2 uj
1
ouj
2 procedure as in the classical FEM.
q qdA 39 (e) End the loop over the smoothing domain.
m1 Am ot 2 ox1
eff (5) Imposing the boundary conditions.
74 P. Liu et al. / Comput. Methods Appl. Mech. Engrg. 233236 (2012) 6880

(6) Solve the linear system of equations to obtain the nodal dis-
placements, and evaluate the strains and stresses for check-
ing if necessary.
(7) Specify the integration parameters of Newmark algorithm,
i.e. b; c.
(8) Calculate some other integration constants of Newmark
algorithm.
(9) Form the effective stiffness matrix based on Newmark
algorithm.
(10) Specify the initial conditions for displacement, velocity and
acceleration vectors.
(11) Loops over each time-step
Fig. 7. Geometry of a semi-innite crack.
(a) Calculate the effective load vector based on Newmark
algorithm. 5.1.1. Convergence study of the DSIFs versus used meshes
(b) Solve for the nodal displacement vector at each time- Since increasing the mesh density is a simple technique to im-
step. prove the nite element results, ve meshes with 10  6, 14  10,
(c) Calculate the nodal velocities and accelerations at each 20  14, 40  20 and 66  26 elements are thus considered in this
time-step. study. Two typical regular meshes of 10  6 and 66  26 elements
(d) Compute the J-integral and then the dynamic stress used for the computation are shown in Fig. 8, respectively. The nor-
intensity factors based on the smoothing domains. malized mode-I DSIFs as a function of the normalized time t/tc
computed by the sES-FEM are evaluated for each mesh individu-
5. Numerical results and discussions ally, and the obtained results are then compared with the theoret-
ical reference solution. Figs. 9 and 10 present, respectively, the
In this section, several numerical examples for the stationary convergence of the normalized mode-I DSIFs and their percentage
cracks under dynamic loads under the assumption of plane strain errors for the ve considered meshes. As shown in Figs. 9 and 10,
condition of 2D elasticity are considered and investigated in de- the normalized values of the DSIFs achieved by the sES-FEM con-
tails. In some cases, we also provide numerical solutions using verge well to the exact solution as the mesh gets ner. Neverthe-
the standard X-FEM to further conrm the accuracy of the present less, the largest error appears almost near t = tc with the coarse
approach. The Heaviside step and blast dynamic loads as depicted meshes and this might be due to the fact that the tensile stress
in Fig. 6 are considered throughout the study. waves enter the contour for the DSIFs computation through the
interaction integral before it reaches the crack-tip. As shown in
5.1. Stationary mode-I semi-innite crack Figs. 9 and 10, the error near t = tc decreases signicantly when a
ner mesh is taken, it is because a smaller contour can be used
An innite plate with a semi-innite mode-I crack loaded by a with the same number of elements in a ner mesh.
tensile stress perpendicular to the crack-face is considered. The
analytical solution for mode-I DSIF is given by Freund [32], which 5.1.2. Comparison with the X-FEM results
is thus used here for the validation purpose. The sketch of the Fig. 11 presents a comparative study of the normalized mode-I
problem is presented in Fig. 7 and the plate dimensions are: plate DSIFs as a function of time among different approaches including
length L = 10 m, crack length a = 5 m, and vertical half-height of the analytical solution. Four available solutions are compared with
the plate H = 2 m. The material properties are: Youngs modulus the sES-FEM results using a ne mesh of 66  26 elements. The ref-
E = 210 GPa, Poissons ratio m = 0.3 and mass density erence solutions, respectively, include the analytical solution, the
q = 8000 kg/m3. A tensile stress of r0 = 500 MPa is applied on one obtained by the X-FEM using mass lumping [19], other two re-
the top surface of the plate. According to [19], because the analyt- sults derived from the combined approach of meshfree method
ical solution is obtained under the assumptions of an innite and X-FEM without and with crack-tip enrichments [33], and the
plate with a semi-innite crack, therefore, we can only compare
the results with the analytical solution until the tensile stress
wave is reected on the bottom side and reaches again the (a): a coarse mesh of 10x6 triangular elements
crack-tip. The time needed by the stress wave to reach the
crack-tip for the rst time is tc = H/cd, where cd is the dilatational
wave speed. Thus, the valid time for the simulation is
t 6 3t c 3H=cd 1:009  103 s, beyond that the exact solution
is no longer valid for comparison with the present numerical p re-
sults. For convenience, the DSIF is normalized by K dyn I =r 0 H. As
the wave reaches the crack-tip at time tc, the theoretical solution
of the mode-I DSIF for a stationary crack can be written as [33]:
( cracks
0 if t < t c (b): a fine mesh of 60x26 triangular elements
K dyn 0; t q 41
I 2r 0 cd tt c 12m
1m p if t P tc

(a) (b)

Fig. 8. Regular meshes of a plate with a mode-I edge crack used for the present sES-
Fig. 6. Heaviside step loading (a) and blast loading (b). FEM.
 P. Liu et al. / Comput. Methods Appl. Mech. Engrg. 233236 (2012) 6880 75

1.6 1.6
Analytical Analytical
1.4 10x6 1.4 sESFEM
14x10 XFEM (mass lumping) [19]
1.2 20x14 1.2 XFEM+meshfree (No tip) [33]
40x20 XFEM+meshfree (tip) [33]
66x26 XFEM (new enrichment) [34]
1 1

Kdyn/ H
Kdyn/ H

0.8 0.8

0
0

0.6 0.6

I
I

0.4 0.4

0.2 0.2

0 0

0.2 0.2
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3
t/tc t/tc

Fig. 9. Convergence of the normalized mode-I DSIFs versus mesh densities Fig. 11. Comparison of the normalized mode-I DSIFs among different methods.
(rd = 1.0).
of the results. In this dynamic study, we investigate the inuence
of Gaussian points for the same mesh, e.g., 66  26, and the DSIFs
8 are then evaluated individually for four different numbers of
x 10
5 Gaussian points, e.g., 1, 3, 5 and 8, respectively. Fig. 12 presents
10x6 the results to show the inuence of the number of Gaussian points
14x10
4 along one segment of the smoothing domains on the DSIFs. The re-
20x14
40x20 sults are presented in percentage errors of the normalized DSIFs
66x26 estimated over the analytical solution, and as observed in Fig. 12
3
the number of Gaussian points larger than or equal to 3 must be
/0H

used in practice to ensure the accuracy of the method. Also, an in-

2 crease of the number of Gaussian points larger than 3 does not im-
Error (%) in Kdyn
I

prove the accuracy of the results. Thus, all the numerical

1 calculations discussed later use 5 Gaussian points along one seg-
ment of the smoothing domains.
0
5.1.4. Effect of domain-sizes for the computation of the interaction
integral
1
We consider several different domain-sizes from 0.5 to 2.5 for
the computation of the interaction integral as described in Sec-
2 tion 3. The domain-size is controlled by a non-dimensional radius
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3
rd as depicted in Fig. 5(b) above. The computed results in percent-
t/tc

Fig. 10. Convergence in percentage errors for the normalized mode-I DSIFs versus
8
mesh densities (rd = 1.0). x 10

last one using the X-FEM with a new enrichment function [34]. The 1
results based on the sES-FEM are more accurate and match the
analytical solution most closely compared with other numerical
results. Compared with the exact solution, the sES-FEM gives smal- 0.5
/0H

ler errors near the time t = tc than the other methods. The X-FEM
with mass lumping [19] is oscillating, while lower accuracy is
dyn

0
found in the combined approach of meshfree method and X-FEM
Error (%) in KI

with no tip-enrichment, but better is obtained with tip-enrichment

[33]. Nevertheless, very good results achieved by the X-FEM using 0.5
a new enrichment function [34] are also observed in Fig. 11. It is
worth noting that the mass lumping, oscillations, etc. are directly NGauss=1
related to the used time integration schemes and not the spatial 1 NGauss=3
discretization in the sES-FEM. N =5
Gauss
1.5 NGauss=8
5.1.3. Inuence of the number of Gaussian points
In static crack problems using the sES-FEM [13], the inuence of 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3
the number of Gaussian points on the relevant fracture parameters t/t
c
has analyzed and it was found that the SIFs and the strain energy
keep nearly constant when more than 5 Gaussian points are used, Fig. 12. Variation of the normalized mode-I DSIFs in percentage errors estimated
whereas less Gaussian points generally lead to an over-estimation with respect to the exact solution for four different numbers of Gaussian points.
76 P. Liu et al. / Comput. Methods Appl. Mech. Engrg. 233236 (2012) 6880
age errors of the normalized mode-I DSIFs are presented in
Fig. 13(a) and (b) for ne (e.g., 66  26) and coarse (e.g., 20  14)
meshes, respectively. As shown in Fig. 13(a), the errors near t = tc
for both meshes increase as the radius rd > 1.2, probably due to
the fact that the tensile stress waves enter the contour for the
SIF computation through the interaction integral before it reaches
the crack-tip. Whereas, the numerical error near t = tc decreases
signicantly with a smaller radius. This is because a smaller con-
tour can be taken with the same number of elements. These small
radii however should not be less than 1.0 since large errors can be
induced for the tails of the DSIFs curves after t > tc. Similar remarks
cated in the middle of the beam and has a length a = 0.005 m.
The beam is subjected to a Heaviside step load as depicted in
Fig. 6(a), and a step load of the amplitude r = 500 N/m is applied
at the top of the beam over a length of l = 0.002 m. The material
constants are: Youngs modulus E = 200 GPa, Poissons ratio
m = 0.3, and mass density q = 7860 kg/m3. A mesh of 110  20 tri-
angular elements and a total simulation time of 264 ls are used.
The mode-I DSIF is evaluated and the computed result is then pre-
sented in Fig. 15. For convenience the result is normalized by the
static mode-I SIF, which is given by [3537]:
r
a
6Slr
can be made for the results in Fig. 13(b) corresponding to the K sta
I 2
paw ; 42
coarse mesh. Obviously, a radius of 1 6 r d 6 1:2 is recommended 4BW W
for this problem to adequately ensure the accuracy of the method. a a  a 2  a 3  a 4
w 1:09  1:735 8:2  14:18 14:57 :
5.2. Edge-crack in a three-point bending beam W W W W W
43
As next example, we consider a plane strain three-point bend- For validation purpose, the computed result is then compared
ing beam as shown in Fig. 14. The beam with a span-length with those obtained from the singular enrichment FEM (Enrich.
L = 0.055 m, depth W = 0.01 m, thickness B = 0.01 m, and a support FEM) [35] and the X-FEM [37]. Very good agreements are observed
distance S = 0.04 m contains a stationary edge crack, which is lo- in Fig. 15 and the normalized mode-I DSIF versus time oscillates
about the static value and a maximum amplication of 2.0 is ob-
tained as reported in [3537].

(a) 5
x 10
8
5.3. Rectangular plate with a slanted edge crack
fine mesh: 66x26 rd=0.5
4 rd=0.8 In order to illustrate the applicability and the reliability of the
r =1.0
d
sES-FEM for analyzing mixed-mode crack problems, an oblique
3
r =1.2
d
crack is thus considered. A rectangular plate with an edge crack
rd=1.6 slanted at an angle a = 45 to the boundary with three edges sup-
/ H

2
ported as depicted in Fig. 16 is examined. The plate is subjected to
0

r =2.0
d
a uniform tensile impact loading r0H(t), where H(t) represents the
dyn

1 rd=2.5
Error (%) in KI

Heaviside step function as shown in Fig. 6(a). The total time of the
0 simulation is t = 25 ls. The geometrical parameters of the plate
are: b = 44 mm, h = 32 mm, c = 6 mm, and crack-length
1 a = 22.63 mm. The material constants of the plate are: shear mod-
ulus G = 29.4 GPa, Poissons ratio m = 0.286, and mass density
2
q = 2.45  106 kg/mm3 [3]. This example has been analyzed pre-
3
viously by many other authors, e.g., see [3,3842], which are thus
used as reference solutions.
4 Fig. 17 presents a comparison of the normalized mode-I and
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3
mode-II DSIFs among the sES-FEM and seven other reference solu-
t/tc
tions. The problem is performed by using a ne unstructured mesh
(e.g., 25  17). The reference solutions include the results given by
(b) x 10
8
Nishioka and Atluri [38] using the FEM with path-independent
7
coarse mesh:24x14 r =0.5 integrals, Fedelinski et al. [39] using the dual BEM, Song [40] using
d
r =0.8
a super element in terms of the scaled boundary nite element
6 d
method, Wen and Aliabadi [41] using the mesh-free Galerkin
r =1.0
d
5 method; Dominguez and Gallego [42] using the time-domain
rd=1.2
BEM, Kishimoto et al. [3] using also the FEM with a special J-inte-
rd=1.6
/ H

4
gral, and the standard X-FEM calculated by the authors. As shown
0

rd=2.0
in Fig. 16, the sES-FEM results agree very well with all the refer-
dyn

3
rd=2.5
ence solutions. However, less accuracy after 12 ls approximately,
Error (%) in KI

0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3

t/tc

Fig. 13. The effect of various relative integration domain-sizes on the normalized
mode-I DSIFs: (a) ne mesh, and (b) coarse mesh. Fig. 14. Geometry of a three-point-bending beam.
 P. Liu et al. / Comput. Methods Appl. Mech. Engrg. 233236 (2012) 6880 77

Similar to the example presented in Section 4.1, we analyze

2 Enrich. FEM
now the inuence of the domain-sizes on the normalized mode-I
XFEM
1.8 sESFEM and mode-II DSIFs and the computed results are presented in
Fig. 18(a) and (b), respectively. The solutions are compared with
1.6
the ones achieved by the X-FEM, and the same conclusion is again
1.4 found here, i.e., 1 6 r d 6 1:2 must be used to not lose the accuracy
of the method.
1.2
sta
/KI

5.4. Rectangular plate with an arbitrarily oriented central crack

Kdyn

1
I

0.8
As the last example we consider a rectangular plate with an
0.6 arbitrarily oriented central crack whose geometry is shown in
Fig. 19. The geometrical parameters of the plate are: 2H = 40 mm,
0.4
2W = 20 mm, and crack-length 2a = 4.8 mm. The plate is subjected
0.2 on the top and the bottom either to a uniform impact loading with
the Heaviside step function or to a uniform blast loading as shown
0
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 in Fig. 6. The following material constants of the plate are used:
Time(s) x 10
4
Youngs modulus E = 200 GPa, Poissons ratio m = 0.3, and mass
density q = 5000 kg/m3. The total time of the simulation is
Fig. 15. Comparison of the normalized mode-I DSIF for a three-point-bending beam t = 20 ls. The central crack can be rotated to arbitrary angle and
with a mid-span crack.
h = 15, 30, 45, 60 and 75 are particularly examined in the fol-
lowing. For convenience of the representation and comparison of
the results, the modes-I and -II DSIFs are normalized by

(a) 1.6 XFEM

r =0.5
d
1.4 rd=0.8
rd=1.0
1.2 rd=1.2
r =1.6
d
/0(a)1/2

1
r =2.5
d
r =3.0
0.8 d
dyn
KI

0.6
Fig. 16. Geometry of a rectangular plate with an inclined crack.

0.4

for instance, can be observed in the numerical solutions given by

0.2
Kishimoto et al. [3]. It is also noted that a base mesh with the quad-
rilateral elements and a ne uniform mesh are used in the X-FEM. 0
0 5 10 15 20 25
Time (s)

1.8 (b) XFEM

Nishioka and Atluri (1984) 1
r =0.5
d
1.6 Fedelinshi et el. (1996)
rd=0.8
Song (2004)
1.4 Wen and Aliabadi (2009) rd=1.0
0.8
Dominguez et el. (1992) r =1.2
d
1.2 Kishimoto et al. (1980) rd=1.6
KII /0(a)1/2

standard XFEM
Kdyn/ (a)1/2

0.6 rd=2.5
1 Present
rd=3.0
0

dyn

0.8
I,II

0.4
MODE I
0.6

0.4
0.2

0.2
MODE II
0 0
0 5 10 15 20 25
0 5 10 15 20 25 Time (s)
Time (s)
Fig. 18. Variations of the normalized mixed-mode DSIFs with time for various
Fig. 17. Comparison of the normalized mixed-mode DSIFs for a rectangular plate integration domain-sizes for a rectangular plate with a slanted edge crack: (a)
with a slanted edge crack. mode-I, and (b) mode-II.
78 P. Liu et al. / Comput. Methods Appl. Mech. Engrg. 233236 (2012) 6880

1.6 450 SGBEM

XFEM
1.4 sESFEM

1.2 0 0
30 & 60

1/2
0.8

KII /0(a)
150 & 750
0.6

dyn
0.4

0.2

0.2

Fig. 19. Geometry of a rectangular plate with an arbitrarily oriented central crack. 0 5 10 15 20
Time (s)

Fig. 21. Comparison of the normalized mode-II DSIFs obtained by the X-FEM, the
3 sES-FEM, and the SGBEM for several crack inclination angles and Heaviside step
SGBEM loading.
XFEM
2.5 150 sESFEM

2 2
0 0
30 15 XFEM
0
sESFEM
1.5 1.5 30
1/2
/0(a)

0
45
1
1 450
dyn
KI

Kdyn/ (a)1/2

0.5 0.5
0

0 0 0
60 0
60
I

0 0.5
0.5 75
0
75
0 5 10 15 20
1
Time (s)

Fig. 20. Comparison of the normalized mode-I DSIFs obtained by the X-FEM, the 1.5
sES-FEM, and the SGBEM for several crack inclination angles and Heaviside step
loading. 0 5 10 15 20
Time (s)

p Fig. 22. Comparison of the normalized mode-I DSIFs obtained by X-FEM and the
K dyn
I;II =r0 pa. To further conrm the validity of the sES-FEM, we sES-FEM for several crack inclination angles and blast loading.
also provide a reference solution with the aid of the standard X-
FEM.
We rst start considering the Heaviside step loading. Fig. 20 45
0 XFEM
presents the normalized mode-I DSIFs for the ve considered crack 0 0
sESFEM
1 30 & 60
angles computed by the sES-FEM, the X-FEM and the symmetric
Galerkin BEM (SGBEM) [43]. It should be noted that the SGBEMs
solutions are limited to a total simulation time of t = 14 ls with a 150 & 750
0.5
damping ratio of 1%. The results given in this gure generally show
a good agreement among each other for the ve considered crack
1/2
KII /0(a)

inclination angles. The numerical results are reasonable and con-

0
sistent to the behavior of the static solutions, e.g., see Fig. 20 in
dyn

[18]. It is seen in the responses that the normalized mode-I DSIF

decreases as h increases before the rst 10 ls and after 15 ls, while
Fig. 21 reveals that the mode-II DSIFs are practically the same for 0.5

h = 15 and h = 75, and h = 30 and h = 60. The maximum ampli-

tude of the normalized mode-II DSIFs is found at h = 45 and this
behavior is observed also in the static case [18]. Additionally, the 1
same crack problem is further considered for the blast dynamic
0 5 10 15 20
loading as depicted in Fig. 6(b). Here, t1 = 2 ls and t2 = 20 ls are
Time (s)
used. Quite similar behaviors can be found for the case of the blast
loading as presented in Figs. 22 and 23 for the normalized mode-I Fig. 23. Comparison of the normalized mode-II DSIFs obtained by the X-FEM and
and mode-II DSIFs, respectively. the sES-FEM for several crack inclination angles and blast loading.
 P. Liu et al. / Comput. Methods Appl. Mech. Engrg. 233236 (2012) 6880
It should be noted here that in Figs. 20 and 22 a negative mode-I
stress intensity factor may be induced in some time-ranges due to
the reected elastic waves, which implies a crack-face penetration
and has no physical meaning. Exactly speaking, the traction-free
crack-face boundary conditions have to be modied and a contact
algorithm is required in the time-range, where a negative mode-I
stress intensity factor is negative. Another possibility to avoid the
crack-face penetration is to superimpose a tensile loading on the
dynamic impact loading in such a way that the crack remains open.
6. Conclusions
This paper presents an advanced sES-FEM to solve stationary
dynamic crack problems in 2D linear elastic solids subjected to
impact loads in the context of the strain smoothing approach.
The DSIFs are computed using the domain-form of the interaction
integral in terms of the strain smoothing method. The present
sES-FEM essentially uses a base mesh with the linear triangular
elements, and in order to model the singular elds at the crack-
tip, a 5-node triangular crack-tip element is thus employed. To
ensure the stability of the method, the implicit Newmark time
integration scheme is implemented. Extensive numerical exam-
ples have been considered and the computed DSIFs are compared
with the available reference solutions to validate the method and
assess its accuracy, and very good agreements are found. Many
numerical aspects have been investigated, and it is found that at
least 5 (or even 3) Gaussian points must be used for dynamic
crack problems to achieve acceptable solutions. The sES-FEM
works well with the domain-form of the interaction integral,
and a radius in the range 1 6 rd 6 1:2 is recommended to ensure
the accuracy of the computation of the DSIFs. The present sES-
FEM is stable and highly accurate which implies that the sES-
FEM can be efciently applied to solve the stationary dynamic
crack problems in 2D linear elastic solids. Thus, the sES-FEM can
be considered as an alternative numerical method for simulating
the stationary dynamic cracks problems with high accuracy. The
present method requires more computing time than the standard
singular FEM due to the additional effort of the smoothing
procedure, which conrms the conclusions of the previous studies
[1116].
The extensions and applications of the present method to other
complicated crack problems, such as fast propagating cracks and
crack problems in continuously nonhomogeneous functionally
graded materials, piezoelectric and magnetoelectroelastic materi-
als should be exerted in future. The efciency of the method for
crack propagation problems may be disturbed by the mid-side
nodes which need to be re-dened in every crack propagation step.
Alternately, a novel version based on the combination of the
smoothing method and the X-FEM, the so-called Smoothed X-
FEM [2123], seems to be more attractive and appropriate for dy-
namic crack propagation problems. It is because the Smoothed X-
FEM may have many advantages, for instance, it is more conve-
nient in dealing with the discontinuities by using enrichment tech-
niques and independent of the mesh, it requires no re-meshing for
crack growth modeling, and its accuracy is improved by the
smoothing technique, and so on. Thus, studies on the Smoothed
X-FEM would be also interesting for future research works.
Acknowledgments
The supports of the German Research Foundation (DFG, Project-
No. ZH 15/14-1), the National Natural Science Foundation of China
(Grant No. 51179063) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the
Central Universities (Grant No. 2011B03014) are gratefully
acknowledged.
79
References
[1] F. Chirino, J. Dominguez, Dynamic analysis of cracks using boundary element
method, Engrg. Fract. Mech. 34 (1989) 10511061.
[2] S. Aoki, K. Kishimoto, H. Kondo, M. Sakata, Elastodynamic analysis of crack by
nite element method using singular element, Int. J. Fract. 14 (1987) 5968.
[3] K. Kishimoto, S. Aoki, M. Sakata, Dynamic stress intensity factors using J-
integral and nite element method, Engrg. Fract. Mech. 13 (1980) 387394.
[4] J.W. Kelley, C.T. Sun, A singular nite element for computing time dependent
stress intensity factors, Engrg. Fract. Mech. 12 (1979) 1322.
[5] J.S. Chen, C.T. Wu, S. Yoon, Y. You, A stabilized conforming nodal integration for
Galerkin meshfree method, Int. J. Numer. Methods Engrg. 50 (2000) 435466.
[6] J.S. Chen, S. Yoon, C.T. Wu, Non-linear version of stabilized conforming nodal
integration for Galerkin mesh-free methods, Int. J. Numer. Methods Engrg. 53
(2002) 25872615.
[7] G.R. Liu, K.Y. Dai, T.T. Nguyen, A smoothed nite element method for
mechanics problems, Comput. Mech. 39 (2007) 859877.
[8] K.Y. Dai, G.R. Liu, T.T. Nguyen, An n-side polygonal smoothed nite element
method (nSFEM) for solid mechanics, Finite Elem. Anal. Des. 43 (2007) 847
860.
[9] G.R. Liu, T.T. Nguyen, X.H. Nguyen, K.Y. Lam, A node-based smoothed nite
element method for upper bound solution to solid problems (NS-FEM),
Comput. Struct. 87 (2009) 1426.
[10] G.R. Liu, T. Nguyen-Thoi, K.Y. Lam, An edge-based smoothed nite element
method (ES-FEM) for static free and forced vibration analysis, J. Sound Vib. 320
(2009) 11001130.
[11] G.R. Liu, N. Nourbakhshnia, Y.W. Zhang, A novel singular ES-FEM method for
simulating singular stress eld near the crack tips for linear fracture problems,
Engrg. Fract. Mech. 78 (2011) 863876.
[12] G.R. Liu, N. Nourbakhshnia, L. Chen, Y.W. Zhang, A novel general formulation
for singular stress eld using the ES-FEM method for the analysis of mixed-
mode cracks, Int. J. Comput. Methods 1 (2010) 191214.
[13] L. Chen, G.R. Liu, N. Nourbakhshnia, K. Zeng, A singular edge-based smoothed
nite element method (ES-FEM) for bimaterial interface cracks, Comput.
Mech. 45 (2010) 109125.
[14] N. Nourbakhshnia, G.R. Liu, A quasi-static crack growth simulation based on
the singular ES-FEM, Int. J. Numer. Methods Engrg. 88 (2011) 473492.
[15] L. Chen, G.R. Liu, Y. Jiang, K. Zeng, J. Zhang, A singular edge-based smoothed
nite element method (ES-FEM) for crack analyses in anisotropic media,
Engrg. Fract. Mech. 78 (2011) 85109.
[16] Y. Jiang, G.R. Liu, Y.W. Zhang, L. Chen, T.E. Tay, A singular ES-FEM for plastic
fracture mechanics, Comput. Methods Appl. Mech. Engrg. 200 (2011) 2943
2955.
[17] T. Belytschko, T. Black, Elastic crack growth in nite elements with minimal
remeshing, Int. J. Numer. Methods Engrg. 45 (1999) 601620.
[18] N. Moes, J. Dolbow, T. Belytschko, A nite element for crack growth without
remeshing, Int. J. Numer. Methods Engrg. 46 (1999) 131150.
[19] T. Elguedj, A. Gravouil, H. Maigre, An explicit dynamics extended nite
element method. Part 1: MASS LUMPING FOR arbitrary enrichment functions,
Comput. Methods Appl. Mech. Engrg. 198 (2009) 22972317.
[20] D. Motamedi, S. Mohammadi, Dynamic analysis of xed cracks in composites
by the extended nite element method, Engrg. Fract. Mech. 77 (2010) 3373
3398.
[21] S.P.A. Bordas, T. Rabczuk, X.H. Nguyen, V.P. Nguyen, S. Natarajan, T. Bog, M.Q.
Do, V.H. Nguyen, Strain smoothing in FEM and XFEM, Comput. Struct. 88
(2010) 14191443.
[22] L. Chen, T. Rabczuk, G.R. Liu, K.Y. Zeng, P. Kerfriden, S.P.A. Bordas, Extended
nite element method with edge-based strain smoothing (ESm-XFEM) for
linear elastic crack growth, Comput. Methods Appl. Mech. Engrg. (2011),
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cma.2011.08.013.
[23] B. Vu-Bac, X.H. Nguyen, L. Chen, S.P.A. Bordas, P. Kerfriden, R.N. Simpson, G.R.
Liu, T. Rabczuk, A node-based smoothed extended nite element method (NS-
XFEM) for fracture analysis, Comput. Methods Engrg. Sci. 2011 (1989) 125.
[24] T.J.R. Hughes, The Finite Element Method-Linear Static and Dynamic Finite
Element Analysis, Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1987.
[25] I. Nistor, O. Pantale, S. Caperaa, Numerical implementation of the extended
nite element method for dynamic crack analysis, Adv. Eng. Softw. 39 (2008)
573587.
[26] G.R. Liu, Meshfree Methods-Moving beyond the Finite Element Method,
second ed., CRC Press, Taylor and Francis Group, USA, 2010.
[27] S.H. Song, G.H. Paulino, Dynamic stress intensity factors for homogeneous and
smoothly heterogeneous materials using the interaction integral method, Int.
J. Solids Struct. 43 (2006) 48304866.
[28] B. Moran, C.F. Shih, Crack tip and associated domain integrals from
momentum and energy balance, Engrg. Fract. Mech. 27 (1987) 615641.
[29] B. Moran, C.F. Shih, A general treatment of crack tip contour integrals, Int. J.
Fract. 35 (1987) 295310.
[30] J.W. Eischen, An improved method for computing the J-integral, Engrg. Fract.
Mech. 26 (1987) 691700.
[31] J. Yau, S. Wang, H. Corten, A mixed-mode crack analysis of isotropic solids
using conservation laws of elasticity, J. Appl. Mech. 47 (1980) 335341.
[32] L.B. Freund, Dynamic Fracture Mechanics, Cambridge University Press, London,
1990.
[33] T. Menoulillard, T. Belytschko, Dynamic fracture with meshfree enriched
XFEM, Acta Mech. 213 (2010) 5369.
80 P. Liu et al. / Comput. Methods Appl. Mech. Engrg. 233236 (2012) 6880
[34] T. Menouillard, S.H. Song, Q. Duan, T. Belytschko, Time dependent crack
tip enrichment for dynamic crack propagation, Int. J. Fract. 162 (2010) 33
49.
[35] T. Belytschko, H. Chen, Singular enrichment nite element method for
elastodynamic crack propagation, Int. J. Comput. Methods 1 (2004) 115.
[36] K. Kishimoto, S. Aoki, M. Sakata, Simple formula for dynamic stress intensity
factor of pre-cracked Charpy specimen, Engrg. Fract. Mech. 13 (1980) 501508.
[37] J. Rethore, A. Gravouil, A. Combescure, An energy-conserving scheme for
dynamic crack growth using the extended nite element method, Int. J.
Numer. Methods Engrg. 63 (2005) 631659.
[38] T. Nishioka, S.N. Atluri, On the computation of mixed-mode K-factors for a
dynamically propagating crack, using path-independent integrals J0k , Engrg.
Fract. Mech. 20 (1984) 193208.
[39] P. Fedelinshi, M.H. Aliabadi, D.P. Rooke, The Laplace transforms DBEM for
mixed-mode dynamic crack analysis, Comput. Struct. 59 (1996) 10211031.
[40] C. Song, A super-element for crack analysis in the time domain, Int. J. Numer.
Methods Engrg. 61 (2004) 13321357.
[41] P.H. Wen, M.H. Aliabadi, Evaluation of mixed-mode stress intensity factors by
the mesh-free Galerkin method: static and dynamic, J. Strain Anal. Engrg. Des.
44 (2009) 273286.
[42] J. Dominguez, R. Gallego, Time domain boundary element method for dynamic
stress intensity factor computations, Int. J. Numer. Methods Engrg. 33 (1992)
635647.
[43] A.-V. Phan, L.J. Gray, A. Salvadori, Transient analysis of the dynamic stress
intensity factors using SGBEM for frequency-domain elastodynamics, Comput.
Methods Appl. Mech. Engrg. 199 (2010) 30393050.