Abstract
This paper presents a new augmented finite element method (A-FEM) that enables efficient and accurate treatment of arbitrary, multiple intra-elemental discontinuities in composite materials with complex microstructures. The new A-FEM employs four internal nodes to account for the crack displacements due to an intra-elemental weak or strong discontinuity, and it permits repeated elemental augmentation to include multiple interactive cracks. It thus enables a unified treatment of damage evolution from a weak discontinuity to a strong discontinuity, and to multiple interactive cohesive cracks, all within a single element that employs standard external nodal degree of freedoms (DoFs) only. A novel elemental condensation procedure has been developed to solve the internal nodal DoFs as functions of the external nodal DoFs for any irreversible, piecewise linear cohesive laws. It leads to a fully condensed elemental equilibrium equation with mathematical exactness, eliminating the need for nonlinear equilibrium iterations at elemental level. The new A-FEM's high-fidelity simulation capabilities to interactive cohesive crack formation and propagation in homogeneous and heterogeneous solids have been demonstrated through several challenging numerical examples. It has shown that the new A-FEM, empowered by the novel elemental condensation procedure, is numerically very efficient, accurate, and robust.
Original language | English (US) |
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Title of host publication | Numerical Modelling of Failure in Advanced Composite Materials |
Publisher | Elsevier Inc. |
Pages | 265-308 |
Number of pages | 44 |
ISBN (Print) | 9780081003428, 9780081003329 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Aug 19 2015 |
Keywords
- Augmented-FEM
- Cohesive zone models
- Composite failure
- Fracture
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Engineering(all)
- Materials Science(all)