STRESS INTENSITY FACTORS IN 2-DIMENSIONAL CRACK PROBLEMS BY USING THESUPERIMPOSED MESHES METHOD

A new procedure for the treatment of singularities with the finite ele ment method is developed. It consists of superimposing two independent classical meshes. This approach has at least two advantages. The firs t advantage is that the number of times of remeshing and the computati on time, necessary for achieving a solution with the same accuracy com pared with the usual finite element method (FEM), are much reduced. Th e second advantage stems from the fact that the procedure makes it pos sible to refine one of these meshes, in a local manner, near the singu larity and to do parallel computations for the two meshes: that is the Superimposed Meshes Method (SMM). We use the procedure to compute str ess intensity factors (SIF). The numerical results prove that, compare d with the conventional finite element method, the new procedure is ef ficient in both its accuracy and its global degree of freedom (D.O.F). (C) 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd.