Dual boundary element formulation for fracture mechanics analysis of sheardeformable shells

This paper presents a new boundary element formulation for fracture mechani cs analysis of shear deformable shells. Hyper-singular boundary integral eq uations for shear deformable shells are derived. Dual boundary element form ulations are constructed by using traction integral equations on one side o f the crack surface and displacement integral equations on the other side o f the crack surface and all other boundaries. Fiver stress intensity factor s, two for membrane behaviour and three for shear and bending are computed. Several crack configurations are analysed to demonstrate the efficiency an d accuracy of the proposed formulation. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.