A NUMERICAL GREENS-FUNCTION APPROACH FOR BOUNDARY ELEMENTS APPLIED TOFRACTURE-MECHANICS

The most accurate boundary element formulation to deal with fracture m echanics problems is obtained with the implementation of the associate d Green's function acting as the fundamental solution. Consequently, t he range of applications of this formulation is dependent on the avail ability of the appropriate Green's function for actual crack geometry. Analytical Green's functions have been presented for a few single cra ck configurations in 2-D applications and require complex variable the ory. This work extends the applicability of the formulation through th e introduction of efficient numerical means of computing the Green's f unction components for single or multiple crack problems, of general g eometry, including: the implementation to 3-D problems as a future dev elopment. Also, the approach uses real variables only and well-establi shed boundary integral equations.