SYMMETRICAL GALERKIN BOUNDARY INTEGRAL FRACTURE-ANALYSIS FOR PLANE ORTHOTROPIC ELASTICITY

This paper discusses the formulation and implementation of the symmetr ic Galerkin boundary integral method for two dimensional linear elasti c orthotropic fracture analysis. For the usual case of a traction-free crack, the symmetry of the coefficient matrix can be effectively expl oited to significantly reduce the computational work required to const ruct the linear system. In addition, computation time is reduced by em ploying efficient analytic integration formulas for the analysis of th e orthotropic singular and hypersingular integrals. Preliminary test c alculations indicate that the method is both accurate and efficient.