Elastoplastic and creep line spring models for surface flaws by BEM

In this paper, an effective three dimensional boundary element method (BEM) combined with the line-spring model (LSM) is proposed for elastoplastic an d creep surface crack analyses. The line spring model originally proposed b y Rice and Levy is developed to form the elastoplastic and creep mixed boun dary conditions of crack problems in a continuum manner, which is then inco rporated into the 3D boundary element method to compute the fracture parame ters J, C* and (C) over tilde(t). Numerical examples for elastoplastic and creep surface cracks are presented to show the effectiveness of the method. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.