ON ADAPTIVE REMESHING TECHNIQUES FOR CRACK SIMULATION PROBLEMS

The simulation of fracture processes for discrete crack propagation is well established for linear-elastic cracking problems. Applying finit e element techniques for the numerical formulation, at every increment al macro-crack step the element mesh has to be adapted such that the c rack path remains independent of the initial mesh. The accuracy of the obtained results has to be controlled by suitable error estimators an d error indicators. Considering the dependence of the predicted crack path on the precision of the displacement and stress computation, qual ity measures for the computed results are recommended. In this researc h the use of the Babuska/Rheinboldt error indicator in combination wit h linear-elastic crack propagation problems is demonstrated. Based on this error measure an adaptive mesh refinement technique is developed. In comparison with classical discrete crack propagation simulations t he advantages of the new concept can be clearly observed.