AN APPLICATION OF THE BOUNDARY-ELEMENT METHOD TO THE FATIGUE-CRACK PROPAGATION IN A CRACKED HETEROGENEOUS BODY

In this paper the boundary element method (BEM) was introduced to solv e the problem of fatigue fracture. An alternative approach, the gradua lly increasing method in discretization of boundaries near tile crack tip, initiated to deal with the issue, has made the computation both f aster and more precise, and therefore a fair result was achieved. The correctness of the computation has been proved by comparing the result with that of EPRI, an authoritative engineering estimated method curr ently in use. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.