CRACK-PROPAGATION BY ELEMENT-FREE GALERKIN METHODS

Element free Galerkin methods (EFG) are gridless methods for solving p artial differential equations which employ moving least square interpo lants for the trial and test functions. EFG methods require only nodes and a description of the external and internal boundaries and interfa ces of the model; no dement connectivity is needed. The implementation of EFG to arbitrary crack growth in static problems such as fatigue i s described. Numerical examples show that accurate stress intensity fa ctors can be obtained by this method without any enrichment of the dis placement field by a near crack tip singularity and that crack growth can be easily modeled since it requires almost no remeshing.