Zj. Zeng et al., ANALYSIS OF SURFACE CRACKS USING THE LINE-SPRING BOUNDARY-ELEMENT METHOD AND THE VIRTUAL CRACK EXTENSION TECHNIQUES, International journal of fracture, 60(2), 1993, pp. 157-167
The authors have developed a new line-spring boundary element method w
hich couples the line-spring model with the boundary element method to
deal with the problem of a surface cracked plate. However, the drawba
ck of the line-spring model is that a reliable stress intensity factor
could not be directly obtained near the free surface Therefore, the v
irtual crack extension technique is employed in a post-processor of th
e line-spring boundary element method to obtain the stress intensity f
actor at the crack front-free surface intersection. Theoretical analys
is is described. Stress intensity factors for surface cracks are calcu
lated to verify the proposed method. The interaction of two surface cr
acks is also investigated. The solutions obtained by the line-spring b
oundary element method show that the method proposed is efficient and
reasonably accurate.