Partition of Unity Methods

10 XFEM for 3D Fracture Simulation

Indra Vir Singh

Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, Roorkee, Uttarakhand, India

10.1 Introduction

Two-dimensional (2D) analysis can be useful only for initial design phase and preliminary prototypes. However, 2D realization of every component is not achievable and it can lead to inaccurate designs. The failure prediction of various components features like pocket slots, spherical cavities, and many more, which are not through-thickness, is not possible with the 2D analysis. Even the 2D realization of loading is not feasible in various cases. The 2D realization process becomes impractical in the presence of the cracks for which an assumption of through-thickness has to be considered. Therefore, the 3D numerical analysis of the machine components is an unavoidable process before finalizing the design and start of mass production. The 3D numerical analysis provides more accurate results and realistic conditions. It is beneficial for the cracked components as it can account for the effect of crack front shape.

The extended finite element method (XFEM) has been proved effective for the analysis of the 2D cracked domain as explained in previous chapters. This method can be extended for the 3D analysis also by converting crack from a line to a surface and crack front from a point to a line. The constant efforts from various researchers make it possible to perform the numerical analysis of the ...