Mesh scalability in direct nite element simulation of brittle fracture

Antonio Caballero
*
, Arcady Dyskin
School of Civil and Resource Engineering, M051, The University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Hwy, Crawley, WA 6009, Australia
a r t i c l e i n f o
Article history:
Received 18 May 2007
Received in revised form 31 January 2008
Accepted 13 March 2008
Available online 31 March 2008
Keywords:
Singular stress
Non-singular stress
Scaling
Singularity exponent
a b s t r a c t
A new approach of dealing with mesh dependence in nite element modelling of fracture
processes is introduced. In particular, in brittle fracture modelling, the stress concentration
is mesh dependent as the results do not stabilise when rening the mesh. This paper pre-
sents an approach based on the explicit incorporation of mesh dependence into the com-
putations. The dependence of the relevant stress is quantied on the nite elements at the
crack tip upon the element size; when the dependence approaches a power law with the
required accuracy, the mesh is called scalable. If the mesh is scalable and the exponent
and pre-factor are known, then the results of the computations can be scaled to the size
relevant to the scale of the physical microstructure of the material; the latter while not
being modelled directly ultimately controls the fracture propagation. To illustrate this
new approach, four 2D examples of a single straight crack loaded under tensile and shear
tractions applied either to the external boundary or to the crack faces are considered. It is
shown that combining the stresses at the crack tip computed using a set of similar meshes
of different densities with the crack tip asymptotic allows accurate recovery of the stress
intensity factors.
2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
1.1. Some historical approaches to fracture mechanics
Fracture Mechanics or Linear Elastic Fracture Mechanics as we know it, was originated by Wieghardt
1
[1] and Inglis [3].
Both independently showed that cavities and aws in continuum materials act as stress concentrators which, in the limit of
sharp edges (cracks), produce innite stress at the tip. There are two main approaches to deal with the unphysical unbounded
stress obtained from elastic solutions.
The rst approach is essentially based on the fact that the stress singularities at the crack tip, as well as at the tip of a
wedge are expressed in terms of a power function [4] i.e. as self-similar distributions. Thus, the focus was on expressing
the criteria of the initiation and direction of crack growth through scale invariants such as the fracture energy [5] or the
stress intensity factors, or equivalent [1,6]. The direction of crack growth is determined by these invariants while the criteria
of crack growth include experimentally determined critical values of the invariants themselves or functions thereof. These
critical values incorporate (and conceal) the details of the mechanical behaviour of the material at the crack tip as well as the
ne geometry of the crack tip (these are the factors making the stress distributions bounded thus limiting the applicability of
the theory of elasticity).
0013-7944/$ - see front matter 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.engfracmech.2008.03.007
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +61 8 6488 3987; fax: +61 8 6488 1044.
E-mail addresses: acaballeroj@civil.uwa.edu.au (A. Caballero), adyskin@cyllene.uwa.edu.au (A. Dyskin).
1
See Rossmanith [2] for a detailed overview of this unjustiably forgotten work.
Engineering Fracture Mechanics 75 (2008) 40664084
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Engineering Fracture Mechanics
j our nal homepage: www. el sevi er . com/ l ocat e/ engf r acmech
Another approach is based on the introduction, in greater or lesser detail, of the ne aspects of the crack tip zone. The
simplest possibility is to average the stress singularity over a certain length [7,8]. Then the criterion of crack propagation
includes two parameters: the length of the zone of averaging and the local strength of the material. More sophisticated mod-
els involve specifying the details of non-linear constitutive behaviour of the material near the crack tip [911].
The introduction of the models of ne structure of the material near the crack tip zone puts the limitations to the appli-
cability of the elastic solution: it is valid for distances much greater than the size d of the zone. This restriction demotes the
self-similar stress distribution at the crack tip to the status of an intermediate asymptotic only valid for distances r from the
crack tip in a range d (r (L, Fig. 1, where L is the characteristic size of the crack or the load distribution on it [12].
If this range of validity exists (when the zone of non-elastic behaviour is sufciently small) then the basic fracture
mechanics associated with the self-similarity concept can be used to model, in the rst approximation, the condition of crack
propagation and its path.
Despite the simplications offered by the self-similarity of singular stress eld near the crack tip, the actual computation
of the characteristics of the stress singularities becomes quite complex as soon as the crack geometry differs from simplest
straight and disc-like cracks. In the 1960s, Ngo and Scordelis [13] gave the starting shoot for one of the most fructiferous
research combination, the application of the nite element method to the fracture mechanics thus capitalizing on the con-
siderable exibility of the method in tackling various fracture mechanics problems. After that pioneering paper, many other
works came up establishing the nite element method as a standard tool in the analysis of fracture mechanics problems.
The nite element method adds another characteristic size to the problem the size of the nite element. The reduction
of this size is restricted by the available computational resources and for that reason, in some situations the nite elements
may turn out to be considerably larger than the physical size d. In addition, it was relatively soon noted that as the method is
d
L
r
Fig. 1. Zone of applicability of the elastic solution: d (r (L.
Nomenclature
a semi-length of the crack
C
I
normalized stress factor in mode I
C
II
normalized stress factor in mode II
d characteristic size of the averaging area
h nite element size
K
I
mode I stress intensity factor
K
II
mode II stress intensity factor
L size of the problem domain
p applied normal load
r radial distance from the crack tip
S
d
area of averaging in nite element mesh
S
0
y
constant stress
S
1
y
constant stress
S
0
xy
constant stress
S
1
xy
constant stress
b size coefcient (d
y
= b d
x
)
r
asympt
y
asymptotic stress along y direction (y-axis perpendicular to the crack)
r
asympt
xy
asymptotic shear stress (y-axis perpendicular to the crack)
r
aver
y
averaging stress into area (d bd) along y direction (y-axis perpendicular to the crack)
r
aver
xy
averaging shear stress into area (d bd) (y-axis perpendicular to the crack)
h polar angle
A. Caballero, A. Dyskin/ Engineering Fracture Mechanics 75 (2008) 40664084 4067
usually based upon the approximation of the displacement and/or stresses by polynomials, it is not possible to obtain an
accurate representation of the behaviour near to the singularity. To overcome this awkwardness some authors used to rene
more and more the nite element meshes near the crack tip [1416]. This method however proved to be too expensive in
terms of computing time and data management.
A solution to this problem was found in the development of special nite elements to be placed around the crack tip
[17,18]. These new elements, so-called singular elements, incorporated the singularity and thus restored the local self-sim-
ilarity of the solution at the crack tip (under the assumption that the non-elastic zone at the crack tip can be neglected the
brittle crack concept). Some other works proposed minor changes to this approach, as for instance the method by Henshell
and Shaw [19], in which the mid-side node of a standard eight-node isoparametric element is displaced from its nominal
position. As a result, the singularity occurs exactly at the corner of the element.
A different way to recover self-similar stress distribution is realised in the Fractal Finite Element Method (FFEM). Instead
of introducing special elements, the method proposed by Leung and Su [20,21] splits the domain into two regions: regular
and singular. In the regular region, the conventional Finite Element Method (FEM) is used. The singular region is subdivided,
following a self-similarity rule, into a large number of conventional regions where FEM is also used. However, the resulting
large number of nodal variables is decreased by means of a global interpolating transformation in which the stress intensity
factors (SIFs) are the primary unknowns. The method has been successfully applied to compute the mode I SIF, the mixed
mode [22] and mode III [23] SIFs as well as dynamic loading in mode I [24].
Another direction in the computational fracture mechanics the eXtended Finite Element Method was recently intro-
duced by Belytschko and Black [25]. The XFEM is based on the local partition of unity (PUM) [26,27]. In this method, the
displacement approximation is enriched by additional functions specic only to the regions near the crack tip (or disconti-
nuities of other types such as material interface, etc.). As in the case of PUM, those specic functions can have the form other
than the regular polynomial functions used in the regular FEM. For instance, when dealing with crack problems, the method
could incorporate the self-similar near-tip asymptotic, which enables the domain to be modelled by nite elements without
remeshing [28]. In this method the sparsity and symmetry of the resulting stiffness matrix are retained. The model was
checked for the cases of strong discontinuities [29] as well as weak discontinuities [30]. The above methods may recover
the scale invariants, the stress intensity factors, throughout the known type of stress singularity.
In this paper we propose a methodology of dealing with mesh dependence in elastic brittle fracture mechanics modelling.
The method is based on the determination of scaling properties of the model with respect to the element size with the view
to capitalise on the advantages of xed density meshes. We illustrate the proposed approach using very simple examples for
which benchmark solutions are known: straight 2D brittle cracks under tensile or shear loading. We will use the proposed
methodology to recover the stress intensity factors fromFE computations with different mesh densities. The simplicity of the
problem for this approach comes also from the fact that by the virtue of the assumption of brittleness, the problem does not
possesses a microscopic length which could otherwise be for instance related to the process zone; subsequently the chosen
nite element size represents the nest scale in the modelling. As we are only interested in the scaling properties, we keep
the nite elements strictly of the same type such that the only parameter of the mesh is the element size.
2. Concept of scale-invariant mesh density
Attempts to model fractures explicitly in nite elements lead to mesh dependence in the way that the solution of the
computations (in terms of strain and stresses) at the crack tip for successive rened meshes does not stabilise. The mesh
dependence is caused by the fact that the explicit modelling of fractures introduces a singularity in the stress and strain eld
along any radial direction from the crack tip. However, it is also known that this singularity far of being random is propor-
tional to K=

r
p
where K is the SIF and r the radial distance from the crack tip (see Fig. 1). As mentioned in Introduction there
have been many methods which treat that singularity and/or mesh dependence of the solution near the crack tip on the size
of the nite element. Here another methodology is proposed to overcome difculties associated with mesh dependence
which has been called: The scale-invariant mesh density. Instead of ghting the loosing battle of mesh-dependence we pro-
pose to incorporate it in the computations. The method is based on the assumption that as the characteristic element size (or
a similar characteristic length associated with the numerical method), h, tends to zero (the mesh is presumed to change in a
self-similar manner), all mesh-dependent quantities should change as power functions of h, meaning that a ne enough
mesh becomes scale invariant (this type of scale invariance of the effective process zone length was conrmed by Pant
and Dyskin). This is a generalisation of the conventional notion of mesh independence in which case the scaling exponent
is zero. The proposed mesh scaling can be made to serve two purposes. On the one hand, the mesh can be considered suf-
ciently rened when the mesh-dependent quantities t the power law (this is easy to check by tting a linear regression
line on a loglog plot), meaning that this mesh density is acceptable from the computational point of view. On the other
hand, the obtained exponents can be used to extrapolate the mesh dependent quantities to the actual (physical) microstruc-
tural sizes
2
(if they are known) or to determine these sizes by back analysis.
2
The actual microstructure is not modelled directly, but the nite elements themselves can be viewed as articial structural elements somewhat
representing the real ones. If the real microstructural element are too small and using that many nite elements is computationally prohibitive then the mesh
scalability can be used to extrapolate the mesh-dependent computational results down to the actual size of the physical microstructural elements.
4068 A. Caballero, A. Dyskin/ Engineering Fracture Mechanics 75 (2008) 40664084
It should be noted that our method differs from the methods that utilise the scale invariance of the energy release rate,
which is the main term in the elastic energy variation associated with a small step of crack propagation as thus independent
of the length of this step. This property was used to infer the stress intensity factors without resorting to special nite ele-
ments. This was done by calculating the energy change due to virtual crack propagation, which, in terms of nite element
methods corresponds to crack propagating at the length of one element [32,33], or by direct calculations of the energy re-
lease rate [34]. The scale invariance of the energy makes this method mesh-independent. When the stress intensity factors of
two modes need to be determined, the crack extensions in two different directions are needed [35,36].
The proposed approach cannot be considered as belonging to the class of multi grid methods [37] either, despite some
supercial resemblance since in our method the computations with different mesh densities are independent; rather than
linked in a process of iterative renement. On top of that, our method relies upon linking the scales through a priori known
asymptotic relations.
In essence, the proposed method extracts the scale invariants through the use of meshes of different densities (i.e. by ana-
lysing the change of the quantities of interest with the element size), which will be shown to be more efcient than treating
the stress singularity as a function of the distance from the crack tip.
3. Finite element model of a crack without singular elements
3.1. On recovering parameters of stress concentration from direct numerical stress computations
As indicated in Section 1, the classical representations of crack growth criteria are based on the scale invariants which are
characteristics of the main asymptotic terms of the elastic solutions at the crack tip. The determination of the asymptotic and
the pertinent invariants, require the possibility of approaching the crack tip close enough in comparison to the minimum
characteristic size of crack and/or load distribution. In numerical implementation, however, this possibility is limited by
the presence of another characteristic size which reects the discrete nature of numerical approximation for instance the
mesh element size in the nite element method. In order to highlight the consequences of this restriction, we consider a
simple 2D example in which a straight crack of length 2a is uniformly loaded, Fig. 2. Let the element size be h and consider
the normal stress r
y
at the x-axis which is the line of crack continuation. We assume that the distance from the crack tip is
larger than the size of the element, r Ph, and we focus on the interval h 6 r 6 d (a where one can expect the asymptotics
r
asimpt
y

K
I

2pr
p 1
to represent the complete stress distribution with a sufcient accuracy.
For the crack of Fig. 2 the stress eld is well known. For instance, at the crack continuation the stress has the form [38].
r
y
x
px

x
2
a
2
p : 2
As a model of numerical computations with a characteristic size h we assume an average of (2) over the length h:
r
aver
y
x; h
1
h
_
xh
x
r
y
xdx
p
h

x h
2
a
2
_

x
2
a
2
p
_ _
: 3
In order to get an impression of the accuracy with which the square root asymptotic can be extracted from values (2) we
concentrate on the exponent (the singularity exponent) and see what element size is needed to recover the exponent value
of 0.5 within a sufcient tolerance. We note that if at a point of the mesh, x = a + r, (3) is well approximated by a power
function, then the exponent should be
x
y
a
r
p
p
Fig. 2. The model: a 2D straight crack.
A. Caballero, A. Dyskin/ Engineering Fracture Mechanics 75 (2008) 40664084 4069
ax
lnr
aver
y
a r h; h lnr
aver
y
a r; h
lnr h lnr
: 4
The results for different values of h are plotted in Fig. 3. It is seen that in order to get close to the correct value of singu-
larity exponent (0.5) one needs to choose a very small mesh size of h = 10
5
a (100,000 elements per half crack length). It
was actually this property that made it impractical to perform the explicit computations and the direct extracting of the
asymptotics (1) and brought about the introduction of special elements of various kinds.
In the spirit of the discussed methodology of mesh scalability we can suggest another method of recovering the singular-
ity exponent. Indeed, according to (1), for different averaging lengths h the average stress at the crack tip should scale as
hr
asympt
y
ih
K
I

2
p

ph
p : 5
Subsequently, after performing computations for different values of h, the singularity exponent that corresponds to scaling
the mesh can be recovered as
a
scale

lnr
aver
y
a; 2h lnr
aver
y
a; h
ln2
: 6
The result, as a function of h, is shown in Fig. 4. Already for h = 0.01a we have a
scale
= 0.496 which is much better than the
value a = 0.4914 obtained by choosing h = 0.0001a in the method (4) and close to a = 0.4972 obtained with h = 0.00001a.
Fig. 5 shows the reconstruction of K
I
by tting the singular term (5) to the values (3). It is seen that choosing h = 0.01a
gives an error in K
I
determination of 0.25%.
3.2. The inclusion of further terms of asymptotic expansion
The asymptotics (1) is based on the notion that as r ?0 the singular term supersedes the non-singular part of the stress
eld. However, as soon as a nite characteristic length, h, is involved, the inuence of the non-singular part can be essential
[39]. This is especially important in numerical modelling given the natural desire to keep h as large as possible (for instance
in order to reduce the computational time). In this case, the account of further asymptotic terms might be of benet. We
investigate the possible benet by considering a three term asymptotic expansion of the Williams series:
0 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08
-0.5
-0.4
-0.3
r/a

h=0.01a
h=0.001a
h=0.0001a
h=0.00001a
Fig. 3. Dependence of the singularity exponent (4) for the average stress vs. the distance from the crack tip for different averaging sizes (modelling the
element sizes in numerical computations).
0 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08
-0.5
-0.49
-0.48
-0.47
h/a

Fig. 4. Dependence of the singularity exponent (6) for the average stress vs. the element size.
4070 A. Caballero, A. Dyskin/ Engineering Fracture Mechanics 75 (2008) 40664084
r
asimpt
y

K
I

2pr
p s
0
y
s
1
y

r
p
Or
3=2
: 7
The presence of the constant stress s
0
y
is controlled by the type of loading: for instance, for the loading shown in Fig. 2 this
stress is zero, while if the uniform load p is applied directly to the crack faces, s
0
y
p.
After the averaging, we arrive at the following dependence of the average stress on h:
hr
asimpt
y
ih
K
I

2
p

ph
p s
0
y
S
1
y

h
p
; 8
where S
1
y

2
3
s
1
y
. We will however not dwell onto the interpretation of this coefcient.
When the representation (8) is adopted, the coefcients can be found by performing the regression analysis of the values
of r
aver
y
a; h determined for several values of h. In fact this is a simple multivariate linear regression performed on the values
of h
1/2
and h
1/2
, such that it is sufcient to use only three values of h. We will use averaging lengths of h, 2h and 4h. The
results of K
I
reconstruction performed for different values of h are shown in Fig. 5. It is seen that the accuracy is considerable
higher than the one achieved by using only the singular term. Thus for h = 0.1a, which is quite crude by all accounts, we have
the accuracy of 0.33% as opposite to 2.5% when only the singular term is used.
These observations suggest the following algorithm for recovering the exponent and the stress intensity factors from a
nite element/nite difference model:
1. Choose a mesh size, h and determine the average stress at the crack tip. Given that, for instance in the nite element
method the stresses in a standard element at the crack tip do not represent the stress singularity well enough, especially
with the low order elements, the averaging should be performed over a region consisting of a number of elements,
d = n h where n = 1, 2, . . .
2. Repeat the computations with few smaller sizes, say h/2 and h/4, and t the asymptotics of the type shown in (8) to these
values thus determining the stress intensity factor. The curve tting over several points also serves to mitigate the inu-
ence of the usual numerical errors.
In the following section this procedure will be upgraded to take into account the fact that in 2D problems the elements
are two-dimensional, i.e. include points off the x-axis. It will also be taken into account that the elements do not have to be
symmetrical with respect to the x-axis: we will consider the elements that are offset.
3.3. Stress at the crack tip averaged over a rectangular region
The above recovery algorithm is based on the averaging over an area near the crack tip which, as we assume, scales pro-
portionally to the chosen element size. In order to match this averaging we need to perform a similar averaging for the
asymptotic stress eld. In view of the nite element analysis and taking into account that the averaging region can span sev-
eral nite elements, we will denote its size by d, reserving h for the size of the nite element. In the coordinate frame shown
in Fig. 6 the asymptotics for the stress eld can be expressed in the form [40]:
r
asympt
x

K
I

2pr
p 1 sin
h
2
sin
3h
2
_ _
cos
h
2

K
I

2pr
p 2 cos
h
2
cos
3h
2
_ _
sin
h
2
s
0
x
s
1
x
h

r
p
Or
3=2
;
r
asympt
y

K
II

2pr
p 1 sin
h
2
sin
3h
2
_ _
cos
h
2

K
I

2pr
p sin
h
2
cos
h
2
cos
3h
2
b s
0
y
s
1
y
h

r
p
Or
3=2
;
r
asympt
xy

K
1

2pr
p sin
h
2
cos
h
2
cos
3h
2

K
II

2pr
p 1 sin
h
2
sin
3h
2
_ _
cos
h
2
s
0
xy
s
1
xy
h

r
p
Or
3=2
:
9
0 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08
1.76
1.77
1.78
1.79
1.8
1.81
h/a
a p
K
I
D
e
te
rm
in
a
tio
n
o
f
S
IF
u
s
in
g
th
e
s
in
g
u
la
r
e
x
p
re
s
s
io
n
(5
)
Determination of SIF using three terms
Exact value

Fig. 5. Reconstruction of KI using the expressions containing only the singular term (5) and three asymptotic terms (8).
A. Caballero, A. Dyskin/ Engineering Fracture Mechanics 75 (2008) 40664084 4071
The average stresses then read
hr
asympt
x
i
1
bd
2
_
S
d
r
x
dxdy; hr
asympt
y
i
1
bd
2
_
S
d
r
y
dxdy; hr
asympt
xy
i
1
bd
2
_
S
d
r
xy
dxdy: 10
For the simple conguration shown in Fig. 6 we shall use only the components r
y
for K
I
determination and r
xy
for K
II
deter-
mination. The average values for these components are
hr
asympt
y
i
K
I

d
p C
I
b s
0
y
S
1
y

d
p
;
hr
asympt
xy
i
K
II

d
p C
II
b s
0
xy
S
1
xy

d
p
;
11
where S
1
y
; S
1
xy
are coefcients and
C
I
b
1
b

2p
p
_
b
0
dy
_
1
0

1
2r
1
x
r
_ _
_
1
1
2
1
x
r
_ _

y
r
_ _
2
_ _
dx;
C
II
b
1
b

2p
p
_
b
0
dy
_
1
0

1
2r
1
x
r
_ _
_
1
1
2
1
x
r
_ _

y
r
_ _
2
_ _
dx;
r

x
2
y
2
_
:
12
Fig. 7 shows the values of these factors. It is interesting that for all aspect ratios b, C
I
> C
II
, which means that the effect of K
II
on
the average shear stress is smaller than the effect of K
I
on the normal stress contrary to what is observed on just the x-axis
where the effects are equal.
We will now use (11) and (12) to recover the stress intensity factors for the following examples of crack loadings.
3.4. Uniform loading at crack faces
Remote loading leaves the crack faces unloaded and subsequently the constant terms in (11) are s
0
y
0; s
0
xy
0. We shall
now consider the difference created by the case when these terms are present. The simplest loading for this case is the uni-
form loading of crack faces. Let, for the sake of simplicity, the crack faces be loaded by uniform normal load p. The exact solu-
tion for this case has the form [38]:
x
y
r

d
d
II I
K K
,
d
S
Fig. 6. Rectangular region S
d
of averaging the singular stress eld at the crack tip loaded in such a way that it produces the stress intensity factors K
I
and K
II
.
In principle, the geometry of the region does not have to coincide with the geometry of nite element mesh, though in some cases it might be convenient.
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
0.6
0.7
0.8

) (
I
C
) (
II
C
Fig. 7. The values of factors C
I
and C
II
as functions of the aspect ratio b of the averaging area.
4072 A. Caballero, A. Dyskin/ Engineering Fracture Mechanics 75 (2008) 40664084
r
y
x
px

x
2
a
2
p p: 13
In this case the model of numerical computations with a characteristic size h an average of (13) over the length h is
r
aver
y
x; h
1
h
_
xh
x
r
y
xdx
p
h

x h
2
a
2
_

x
2
a
2
p
_ _
p: 14
The result, as a function of h, is shown in Fig. 8. For h = 0.01a we have a
scale
= 0.54 which is much worse than for the case of
remote loading for which the value a = 0.4914 was obtained. Only by choosing the element size two orders of magnitude
smaller, h = 0.0001a we can obtain a
scale
= 0.504 which achieves accuracy close to the case of remote loading.
The obvious reason for such a dramatic decrease of accuracy is the presence of the constant term in (11). Indeed, in this
case the constant is the rst non-singular term thus the relative error of neglecting the non-singular part is of the order of
O

h
p
_ _
, while in the case of the remote loading, when the rst non-singular term is itself of the order of O

h
p
_ _
, the relative
error of neglecting the non-singular part is of the order of O(h). It is not surprising then that the reconstruction of K
I
by using
only the singular term (5) has a larger error (see the bottom line in Fig. 9). However, when three asymptotic terms (8) are
used for the reconstruction the accuracy is quite high.
4. Numerical examples
4.1. Description of geometry and loading
In line with the remarks made in the previous section according to the difference between the remote loading and the
internal crack loading, in our examples we consider both cases separately for normal and shear loadings. The summary of
the loading types is given in Fig. 10.
To test the proposed scalability mesh method, an example of a 2D squared plate with a crack in the middle is chosen. The
dimensions of the plate are L L and the length of the crack is L/5. The crack which is located at the centre of the plate is
modelled by a nodal disconnection of those continuum elements which have one of their lateral faces lying on one of the
two faces of the crack. Hereby, the nodes located at the crack faces behave as nodes located at any free boundary, being free
to move depending only on the external load and the problem boundary conditions. Due to the symmetry of the geometry
and loading conditions, the problem is reduced and only a quarter of the plate is modelled. In that simplication new bound-
0 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.1
-0.65
-0.6
-0.55
-0.5
h/a

0 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.1

-0.65
-0.6
-0.55
-0.5
h/a

Fig. 8. Dependence of the singularity exponent (6) for the average stress vs. the element size.
0 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08
1.4
1.5
1.6
1.7
h/a
a p
K
I
D
e
te
rm
in
a
tio
n
o
f
S
IF
u
s
in
g
th
e
s
in
g
u
la
r
e
x
p
re
s
s
io
n
(5
)
Determination of SIF using three terms
Exact value

Fig. 9. Reconstruction of K
I
using the expressions containing only the singular term (5) and three asymptotic terms (8) for the crack with uniformly loaded
faces.
A. Caballero, A. Dyskin/ Engineering Fracture Mechanics 75 (2008) 40664084 4073
ary conditions according to the symmetry assumption and to the type of loading have to be established. In particular for uni-
axial tension, either internal or external, normal displacements are impeded along the two symmetry axis while tangential
displacement is let free. However, for shear loading, both external and internal, tangential displacement is impeded on the
symmetry axis at the same time that normal displacement is let free.
The element size in the x-direction is denoted by h while in the y-direction by b h. The averaging area, in these compu-
tations, consists of 3 3 elements such that the size in the x-direction is d = 3h. The method proposed requires different
computations in which the element size is the only changing variable. Hereby, the relation between element sizes along x
and y direction also changes being for all cases b= 0.99701, 0.99797 and 0.99837.
Type 1 Type 4 Type 3 Type 2
Fig. 10. Schematics of the types of loading used in the numerical examples.
Table 1
Characteristics of the three different meshes used in the computations
nelem
y
nelem
x
Elements Nodes Elements crack
168 167 + 1 of half x-size 28.224 85.345 33 + 1 of half x-size
248 247 + 1 of half x-size 61.504 185.505 49 + 1 of half x-size
303 302 + 1 of half x-size 91.809 276.640 60 + 1 of half x-size
Fig. 11. Results of computations for crack under uniaxial tension applied at external boundaries: (a) contour map of r
y
for the most rened mesh; (b)
contour map of the module of the displacement plotted over the deformed shape.
4074 A. Caballero, A. Dyskin/ Engineering Fracture Mechanics 75 (2008) 40664084
4.2. Finite element mesh
For the sake of simplicity, all meshes are structured and formed by identical 8-node quadratic continuum elements. The
level of renement is controlled by the number of continuum elements used to discretise the crack. The crack length always
comprises odd number of elements, ensuring that in all cases there is a nite element in the centre of the crack. Due to the
symmetric simplication of the geometry, the central crack element is twice smaller in the x-direction, whereas the size in
the y-direction remains unchanged.
Hereby, three levels of renement have been considered: nelem
y
= 168, 248 and 303. The characteristics of the considered
meshes are shown in Table 1.
4.3. Type 1 loading: plate under external tension
The plate is loaded under uniaxial tension of magnitude p = 1 MPa directly applied to the upper external boundary of the
plate. The vertical displacement is prevented in all points of the lower boundary excluding the ones which belong to the
crack, the latter being free of load. The horizontal displacement is impeded on the right hand boundary. To avoid spurious
lateral displacements, the x-direction displacement is also impeded in a node located at the left-lower corner. Fig. 11 shows
the contour plots of stress r
y
(Fig. 11a) and displacement u
y
(Fig. 11b).
The computed values of stresses at the Gauss points belonging to the averaging area are presented in Appendix. Table 2
provides a summary of the characteristics of the nite element meshes used in the computations. The last column of this
table contains the value of r
y
obtained in the nite element analysis and averaged on a region of 3 3 nite elements while
the second and third columns refer to the element size and averaging region size along the x-direction.
Table 2
Average stress at the crack tip obtained for three mesh sizes for loading type 1
Mesh h (cm) d (cm) r
aver
y
a; d (MPa)
168 167.5 0.299 0.896 3.684
248 247.5 0.202 0.606 4.437
303 302.5 0.165 0.496 4.888
The rst number in the mesh size refers to the y-direction; the second number refers to the x-direction in which one element is of half length.
Table 3
Results of the determination of the coefcients of rst Eq. (11) for type 1 loading
Stress
parameters
Reconstructed
values
Theoretical values computed for
innite plane
Theoretical values computed for
nite plate
Absolute
error
Relative
error
K
I
(MPa m
1/2
) 5.759 5.605 5.913 0.154 2.6%
s
0
y
(MPa) 0.003 0 0 0.003
s
1
y
(MPa m
1/2
) 0.108
Fig. 12. Results of computations for crack under pure shear applied at external boundaries: (a) contour map of r
xy
for the most rened mesh under; (b)
contour map of the module of the displacement plotted over the deformed shape.
A. Caballero, A. Dyskin/ Engineering Fracture Mechanics 75 (2008) 40664084 4075
The rst column in Table 3 shows the results of the regression analysis for hr
asympt
y
i on variables C
I
(b)d
1/2
and

d
p
. The
second column of the table shows the theoretical value for K
I
obtained for the crack in innite plane and for the constant
stress s
0
y
which for cracks with free faces is always zero. The third column shows the corrected value of the stress intensity
factor which takes into account the inuence of external boundaries taken from [41]. The last two columns show the abso-
lute and relative errors of the proposed computations with respect to the theoretical values of the stress intensity factor for
the crack in nite plate.
4.4. Type 2 loading: plate under external shear
The plate is loaded under pure shear directly applied on the left and upper boundary. Vertical displacement is prevented
in right hand boundary, whereas horizontal displacement is impeded in lower boundary. Nodes located in the crack are left
free, see Fig. 12.
Tables 4 and 5 provide similar information as Tables 2 and 3, respectively, but for the external shear loading case.
4.5. Type 3 loading: crack pressurised from inside
The plate is loaded under opening pressure directly applied to one of the sides of the crack. According to the mesh and
loading symmetries, same boundary conditions as uniaxial tension case are specied, see Fig. 13.
Tables 6 and 7 show the corresponding results for the case of internal opening pressure. Results are organized in a similar
way as presented in loading types 1 and 2 (see Tables 8 and 9).
4.6. Type 4 loading: Crack with shear loading applied to its faces
Shear tractions are applied directly to one of the crack sides. Boundary conditions are the same as in the pure shear test,
see Fig. 14.
4.7. Singularity exponent
In Table 10 the results for the exponents computed from the two nest meshes are given. The exponents are reasonable
close to the expected value (0.5) in the two rst loading cases (external tension and shear). However we can see how the last
two loading cases show a signicant difference with respect to the theoretical value, which corresponds to the results of the
simple example considered in Section 3.4. This difference reects the difference in scaling for the cases of internal and exter-
nal loading since in the formal the asymptotic of stresses at the crack tip includes the constant term equal to the applied
load; in the case of external loading this term is absent.
To check the reasoning presented in Section 3.4, two new meshes have been prepared and computations performed for
uniform tensile loading at the crack faces (type 3 loading). The characteristics of those meshes are given in Table 11. As ex-
pected, the recovery of the singularity exponent using these meshes gives a slightly better result of 0.5916.
Table 4
Average stress at the crack tip obtained for three mesh sizes for type 2 loading
Mesh h (cm) d (cm) r
aver
xy
a; d (MPa)
168 167.5 0.299 0.896 2.067
248 247.5 0.202 0.606 2.453
303 302.5 0.165 0.496 2.687
The rst number in the mesh size refers to the y-direction; the second number refers to the x-direction in which one element is of half length.
Table 5
Results of the determination of the coefcients of rst Eq. (11) for type 2 loading
Stress
parameters
Reconstructed
values
Theoretical values computed for
innite plane
Theoretical values approximated for
nite plate
Absolute
error
Relative
error
K
II
(MPa m
1/2
) 5.761 5.605 5.913
a
0.152 2.58%
s
0
xy
(MPa) 0.003 0 0 0.003
s
1
xy
(MPa m
1/2
) 0.161
a
The exact value of the mode II stress intensity factor for a shear crack in a nite plate of this conguration was not available. The value presented in the
table is obtained by using the corresponding stress intensity factor for the crack in the innite plane (column 3 of the table) and applying the same
correction factor as for the case of tension (loading type 1). By performing such an approximation we obtain an estimate for the error of our method.
4076 A. Caballero, A. Dyskin/ Engineering Fracture Mechanics 75 (2008) 40664084
Fig. 13. Results of computations for crack under uniaxial tension applied at the crack faces: (a) contour map of r
y
for the most rened mesh under internal
opening pressure; (b) contour map of the module of the displacement plotted over the deformed shape.
Table 6
Average stress at the crack tip obtained for three mesh sizes for loading type 3
Mesh h (cm) d (cm) r
aver
y
a; d (MPa)
168 167.5 0.299 0.896 2.667
248 247.5 0.202 0.606 3.420
303 302.5 0.165 0.496 3.871
The rst number in the mesh size refers to the y-direction; the second number refers to the x-direction in which one element is of half length.
Table 7
Results of the determination of the coefcients of rst Eq. (11) for type 3 loading
Stress
parameters
Reconstructed
values
Theoretical values computed for
innite plane
Theoretical values computed for
nite plate
Absolute
error
Relative
error (%)
K
I
(MPa m
1/2
) 5.759 5.605 5.913 0.154 2.60
s
0
y
(MPa) 1.013 0 0 0.013 1.30
s
1
y
(MPa m
1/2
) 0.107
Table 8
Average stress at the crack tip obtained for three mesh sizes for loading type 4
Mesh h (cm) d (cm) r
aver
xy
a; d (MPa)
168 167.5 0.299 0.896 1.065
248 247.5 0.202 0.606 1.452
303 302.5 0.165 0.496 1.686
The rst number in the mesh size refers to the y-direction; the second number refers to the x-direction in which one element is of half length.
Table 9
Results of the determination of the coefcients of rst Eq. (11) for type 4 loading
Stress
parameters
Reconstructed
values
Theoretical values computed for
innite plane
Theoretical values approximated for
nite plate
Absolute
error
Relative
error (%)
K
II
(MPa m
1/2
) 5.761 5.605 5.913
a
0.152 2.57
s
0
xy
(MPa) 1.002 0 0 0.002 0.20
s
1
xy
(MPa m
1/2
) 0.158
a
The exact value of the mode II stress intensity factor for a shear crack in a nite plate of this conguration was not available. The value presented in the
table is obtained by using the corresponding stress intensity factor for the crack in the innite plane (column 3 of the table) and applying the same
correction factor as for the case of tension (loading type 1). By performing such an approximation we obtain an estimate for the error of our method.
A. Caballero, A. Dyskin/ Engineering Fracture Mechanics 75 (2008) 40664084 4077
5. Discussion
We have seen that by interpolating the values of the stress concentration obtained from different mesh densities one can
achieve a reasonable accuracy in the determination of stress intensity factors. So, is this just a new method of computing
them? By no means. Clearly, in conventional situations the usage of conventional computational methods of the linear frac-
ture mechanics such as special types of the nite element method or the other methods, like the collocation method would
be much more efcient. The message we are trying to convey is of a different nature. What we are striving to demonstrate is
that the computations conducted with meshes rougher than the nal one still contain useful information. In theory, the
appropriate mesh density is determined by conducting series of computations with consecutive mesh renement until
the results stabilise, even if in practice it might prove to be computationally demanding. After that, only the results obtained
with the nest mesh are utilised. All previous meshes are thrown in the rubbish bean or, at the best, used to demonstrate
that the nal mesh is chosen appropriately. The methodology we are developing utilises the additional information con-
tained in the computations with the coarser meshes to determine the characteristics of the fracture process. The proposed
methodology consists of the following elements:
1. Identication of the characteristics that are hypothesised to be scale-invariant with respect to the size of the nite ele-
ment, at least for sufciently rened meshes. In it was the effective length of the process zone, i.e. the distance from the
crack tip where the stress given by the analytical solution coincided with the numerically calculated stress (the FLAC was
used for the computations and the crack was modelled as a slot of one element width). In the present examples we have
chosen the stress at the crack tip averaged over an area consisting of a xed number of nite elements. By a sufciently
rened mesh we understand a mesh on which the element size is much smaller than the minimum characteristic size of
the problem (i.e. for instance the crack length). Therefore, for ne enough meshes, in the abovementioned sense, we
expect the test characteristics to be power functions of the element size (for non-uniform meshes we presume that all
element sizes change proportionally with the mesh renement) and thus be scale invariant in the general sense.
Fig. 14. Results of computations for crack under pure shear applied at the crack faces: (a) contour map of r
xy
for the most rened mesh under internal shear
pressure; (b) contour map of the module of the displacement plotted over the deformed shape.
Table 10
Values of the exponents
External tension External shear Internal tension Internal shear
0.4825 0.4541 0.6175 0.7455
Table 11
Characteristics of the three different meshes used in the computations
nelem
y
nelem
x
Elements Nodes Elements crack
388 387 + 1 of half x-size 154.449 464.920 77 + 1 of half x-size
493 492 + 1 of half x-size 243.049 731.120 98 + 1 of half x-size
4078 A. Caballero, A. Dyskin/ Engineering Fracture Mechanics 75 (2008) 40664084
Subsequently, reaching the power law can be used as a quantiable criterion to check whether the mesh is sufciently
ne (in the conventional mesh-independent situations the exponent is simply zero) though in practice this can be com-
putationally demanding. The situation is of course simplied in the case when the exponent is known in advance, as in
the case considered in the present paper where the exponent was 0.5.
2. Determination of the pre-factors of the power law of the characteristics. These pre-factors can either be used in their own
right as mesh-independent characteristics of the process under consideration, as in the case presented where the pre-fac-
tors were proportional to the stress intensity factors. Alternatively, the pre-factors can be utilised to extrapolate the val-
ues of the characteristics for the element sizes that correspond to the real (physical) microstructural size in the case the
latter is much smaller than the element size permitted by the existing computational capacity.
3. When the asymptotic behaviour of the characteristics is known in more detail, for instance from theoretical reasoning, as
in the case considered here case of the average stress near the crack tip, this knowledge can be used to increase the accu-
racy of reconstruction of the parameters of this asymptotic. This possibility was demonstrated in the present paper.
As far as the accuracy of the reconstruction of the stress intensity factors is concerned, we should note that the case we
have considered is intentionally the hardest one as we used a uniform mesh. If the determination of stress intensity factors is
the main aim then non-uniform meshes condensing at the crack tips are called upon.
In conclusion, it can be said that the proposed method follows the methodology that treats the (actual) scale as an extra
dimension [42] on top of the conventional physical dimensions (two dimensions in the examples presented). We extended
this notion to the virtual reality where the mesh characteristic size plays the role of the scale.
6. Conclusions
The paper introduces the concept of mesh scalability which implies that since the mesh-dependent quantities, like stress
concentration, should scale with the element size according to certain asymptotic laws (e.g. as a power low for ne enough
meshes) important additional information about the modelled object can be obtained by collating the results of the compu-
tations performed using similar meshes of different densities. We demonstrate that the straightforward determination of
averaging stresses at the crack tip using the nite element method over different densities of uniform meshes and the sub-
sequent tting of the theoretical dependence allows the recovery of the stress intensity factor. The meshes up to 300 300
elements allow the determination of the stress intensity factors with relative error below 3%.
This result is signicant in two ways. First, it presents a method of determination of the fracture mechanics characteristics
when special singular elements are either not available in the nite element code at hand or not desirable. Most important,
the method does not even need non-uniform meshes, which might be handy when the crack propagation is being modelled.
The only thing required is the computation with meshes of different densities, which is a requirement of any accurate
numerical modelling anyway. Secondly, it introduces a new philosophy of modelling when independent simulations with
meshes of various densities are used simultaneously (the independent simulation with different density meshes is the main
feature that distinguishes this method from the multigrid nite element modeling.) This is especially important in the mesh-
L/2
a
1
5
9 3
2 8
4 7
6
3
2
1
6
5
4
9
8
7
Fig. A1. The numbering and location of the continuum elements and the Gauss points.
A. Caballero, A. Dyskin/ Engineering Fracture Mechanics 75 (2008) 40664084 4079
dependent situations, as the mesh dependence, albeit unavoidable, is placed in the frame of the power law. This allows scal-
ing the mesh dependence to the sizes where a certain physical since can be assigned to the element size.
Acknowledgements
The authors acknowledge the nancial support from the Australian Research Council through the Discovery Grant
DP0559737. A.V.D. acknowledges the nancial support from the Australian Computational Earth Systems Simulator (ACcESS)
a Major National Research Facility.
Appendix A. Below we present the details of the mesh (Fig. A1) and the results of computations for all four loading types
considered (Tables A1A16).
A.1. Type 1 loading
See Tables A1A4.
Table A1
Values of r
y
at the Gauss points for the coarse mesh under external tension
Gauss point Weight r
y
Elem. 1 r
y
Elem. 2 r
y
Elem. 3 r
y
Elem. 4 r
y
Elem. 5 r
y
Elem. 6 r
y
Elem. 7 r
y
Elem. 8 r
y
Elem. 9
1 0.309 2.824 2.741 2.641 3.304 3.419 3.181 3.730 4.625 4.366
2 0.494 2.802 2.774 2.686 3.203 3.392 3.258 3.473 4.263 4.465
3 0.309 2.787 2.818 2.718 3.116 3.378 3.233 3.217 3.937 4.934
4 0.494 2.996 2.955 2.862 3.533 3.784 3.313 3.639 5.025 6.405
5 0.790 2.953 2.971 2.860 3.347 3.674 3.651 3.381 4.544 5.542
6 0.494 2.917 2.997 2.844 3.174 3.578 3.887 3.124 4.099 5.051
7 0.309 3.179 3.228 3.126 3.742 4.128 3.673 3.422 4.662 9.535
8 0.494 3.114 3.227 3.077 3.471 3.935 4.272 3.163 4.062 7.712
9 0.309 3.056 3.235 3.014 3.213 3.756 4.769 2.906 3.498 6.260
Sy average 2.958 2.990 2.868 3.345 3.672 3.686 3.346 4.342 5.949
Table A2
Values of r
y
at the Gauss points for the medium mesh under external tension
Gauss point Weight r
y
Elem. 1 r
y
Elem. 2 r
y
Elem. 3 r
y
Elem. 4 r
y
Elem. 5 r
y
Elem. 6 r
y
Elem. 7 r
y
Elem. 8 r
y
Elem. 9
1 0.309 1.042 1.010 0.972 1.225 1.268 1.178 1.389 1.725 1.628
2 0.494 1.654 1.636 1.583 1.900 2.013 1.932 2.068 2.543 2.664
3 0.309 1.028 1.039 1.001 1.155 1.253 1.198 1.197 1.467 1.842
4 0.494 1.772 1.746 1.690 2.100 2.251 1.967 2.171 3.004 3.833
5 0.790 2.794 2.810 2.702 3.182 3.496 3.473 3.225 4.344 5.304
6 0.494 1.725 1.772 1.680 1.885 2.127 2.312 1.861 2.447 3.020
7 0.309 1.177 1.196 1.157 1.393 1.538 1.366 1.277 1.744 3.574
8 0.494 1.845 1.912 1.822 2.066 2.345 2.546 1.887 2.429 4.622
9 0.309 1.132 1.199 1.115 1.194 1.398 1.778 1.083 1.306 2.343
Sy average 3.542 3.580 3.430 4.025 4.422 4.437 4.040 5.252 7.207
Table A3
Values of r
y
at the Gauss points for the nest mesh under external tension
Gauss point Weight r
y
Elem. 1 r
y
Elem. 2 r
y
Elem. 3 r
y
Elem. 4 r
y
Elem. 5 r
y
Elem. 6 r
y
Elem. 7 r
y
Elem. 8 r
y
Elem. 9
1 0.309 1.144 1.108 1.066 1.349 1.396 1.296 1.532 1.903 1.795
2 0.494 1.816 1.797 1.737 2.091 2.215 2.125 2.280 2.805 2.938
3 0.309 1.129 1.141 1.099 1.271 1.379 1.318 1.319 1.618 2.032
4 0.494 1.948 1.919 1.856 2.313 2.480 2.165 2.394 3.316 4.233
5 0.790 3.071 3.088 2.969 3.504 3.851 3.825 3.556 4.794 5.856
6 0.494 1.896 1.948 1.845 2.075 2.343 2.548 2.051 2.700 3.333
7 0.309 1.295 1.315 1.272 1.535 1.695 1.505 1.409 1.925 3.950
8 0.494 2.029 2.104 2.003 2.276 2.585 2.808 2.082 2.681 5.107
9 0.309 1.245 1.319 1.226 1.316 1.541 1.961 1.194 1.441 2.588
Sy average 3.893 3.935 3.768 4.432 4.871 4.888 4.454 5.796 7.958
4080 A. Caballero, A. Dyskin/ Engineering Fracture Mechanics 75 (2008) 40664084
A.2. Type 2 loading
See Tables A5A8.
Table A4
Computation of K
I
for plate under external tension
h 3 h r
y

3 h
p
1

3h
p
KI

2p
p B A
0.299 0.896 3.684 0.946 1.057
0.202 0.606 4.437 0.778 1.285
0.165 0.496 4.888 0.704 1.420
Computed coefcients 3.387 0.003 0.108
Computed K
I
5.759
Theoretic K
I
5.913
Error 2.602 %
Table A5
Values of r
xy
at the Gauss points for the coarse mesh under external shear
Gauss Point Weight r
xy
Elem. 1 r
xy
Elem. 2 r
xy
Elem. 3 r
xy
Elem. 4 r
xy
Elem. 5 r
xy
Elem. 6 r
xy
Elem. 7 r
xy
Elem. 8 r
xy
Elem. 9
1 0.309 0.551 0.706 0.799 0.489 0.744 0.950 0.374 0.628 1.331
2 0.494 0.801 1.031 1.234 0.703 1.009 1.435 0.562 0.833 1.650
3 0.309 0.454 0.587 0.741 0.392 0.531 0.822 0.321 0.400 0.813
4 0.494 0.856 1.159 1.358 0.733 1.133 1.655 0.575 0.882 2.496
5 0.790 1.236 1.652 2.065 1.050 1.528 2.424 0.869 1.226 2.598
6 0.494 0.695 0.913 1.218 0.584 0.797 1.341 0.500 0.629 0.881
7 0.309 0.514 0.739 0.912 0.424 0.647 1.150 0.352 0.421 1.836
8 0.494 0.735 1.030 1.368 0.606 0.860 1.646 0.536 0.614 1.673
9 0.309 0.409 0.552 0.795 0.336 0.441 0.886 0.311 0.333 0.336
Sy average 1.563 2.092 2.623 1.329 1.923 3.077 1.100 1.491 3.404
Table A6
Values of r
xy
at the Gauss points for the medium mesh under external shear
Gauss point Weight r
xy
Elem. 1 r
xy
Elem. 2 r
xy
Elem. 3 r
xy
Elem. 4 r
xy
Elem. 5 r
xy
Elem. 6 r
xy
Elem. 7 r
xy
Elem. 8 r
xy
Elem. 9
1 0.309 0.647 0.838 0.952 0.574 0.887 1.139 0.435 0.748 1.608
2 0.494 0.936 1.220 1.470 0.818 1.197 1.718 0.650 0.986 1.986
3 0.309 0.528 0.691 0.881 0.453 0.625 0.983 0.368 0.468 0.974
4 0.494 1.005 1.377 1.623 0.858 1.351 1.989 0.668 1.049 3.020
5 0.790 1.443 1.957 2.463 1.221 1.811 2.909 1.003 1.448 3.129
6 0.494 0.805 1.076 1.451 0.673 0.938 1.605 0.572 0.736 1.049
7 0.309 0.603 0.880 1.093 0.496 0.771 1.386 0.409 0.498 2.226
8 0.494 0.857 1.221 1.636 0.702 1.017 1.980 0.620 0.721 2.018
9 0.309 0.473 0.650 0.949 0.385 0.517 1.062 0.356 0.387 0.396
Sy average 1.824 2.478 3.130 1.545 2.278 3.693 1.270 1.760 4.102
Table A7
Values of r
xy
at the Gauss points for the nest mesh under external shear
Gauss point Weight r
xy
Elem. 1 r
xy
Elem. 2 r
xy
Elem. 3 r
xy
Elem. 4 r
xy
Elem. 5 r
xy
Elem. 6 r
xy
Elem. 7 r
xy
Elem. 8 r
xy
Elem. 9
1 0.309 0.706 0.918 1.045 0.625 0.973 1.253 0.473 0.820 1.773
2 0.494 1.019 1.334 1.612 0.890 1.310 1.889 0.704 1.078 2.188
3 0.309 0.573 0.755 0.966 0.491 0.682 1.079 0.397 0.510 1.071
4 0.494 1.096 1.510 1.782 0.935 1.482 2.190 0.726 1.150 3.333
5 0.790 1.570 2.141 2.704 1.326 1.982 3.200 1.087 1.584 3.448
6 0.494 0.874 1.175 1.592 0.729 1.024 1.763 0.617 0.802 1.151
7 0.309 0.658 0.965 1.201 0.539 0.845 1.528 0.445 0.545 2.458
8 0.494 0.933 1.337 1.797 0.762 1.113 2.180 0.671 0.787 2.225
9 0.309 0.513 0.710 1.042 0.416 0.563 1.168 0.385 0.421 0.432
Sy average 1.985 2.711 3.435 1.678 2.494 4.062 1.376 1.924 4.520
A. Caballero, A. Dyskin/ Engineering Fracture Mechanics 75 (2008) 40664084 4081
A.3. Type 3 loading
See Tables A9A12.
Table A8
Computation of K
II
for plate under external shear
h 3 h r
xy

3 h
p
1

3h
p
KII

2p
p B A
0.299 0.896 2.067 0.946 1.057
0.202 0.606 2.453 0.778 1.285
0.165 0.496 2.687 0.704 1.420
Computed coefcients 1.815 0.003 0.161
Computed K
II
5.761
Theoretic K
II
5.605
Error 2.779 %
Table A9
Values of r
y
at the Gauss points for the coarse mesh under internal crack opening pressure
Gauss point Weight r
y
Elem. 1 r
y
Elem. 2 r
y
Elem. 3 r
y
Elem. 4 r
y
Elem. 5 r
y
Elem. 6 r
y
Elem. 7 r
y
Elem. 8 r
y
Elem. 9
1 0.309 0.560 0.534 0.504 0.708 0.741 0.668 0.842 1.105 1.025
2 0.494 0.886 0.872 0.828 1.084 1.173 1.107 1.221 1.599 1.694
3 0.309 0.549 0.558 0.527 0.651 0.729 0.684 0.685 0.905 1.201
4 0.494 0.981 0.960 0.914 1.245 1.361 1.132 1.307 1.982 2.635
5 0.790 1.536 1.548 1.461 1.848 2.098 2.077 1.889 2.791 3.535
6 0.494 0.943 0.980 0.905 1.071 1.268 1.415 1.054 1.526 1.958
7 0.309 0.669 0.683 0.652 0.843 0.954 0.815 0.750 1.155 2.590
8 0.494 1.039 1.092 1.019 1.216 1.441 1.598 1.072 1.542 3.240
9 0.309 0.632 0.685 0.617 0.682 0.851 1.153 0.591 0.785 1.568
Sy average 1.949 1.978 1.857 2.337 2.654 2.662 2.353 3.348 4.862
Table A10
Values of r
y
at the Gauss points for the medium mesh under internal crack opening pressure
Gauss Point Weight r
y
Elem. 1 r
y
Elem. 2 r
y
Elem. 3 r
y
Elem. 4 r
y
Elem. 5 r
y
Elem. 6 r
y
Elem. 7 r
y
Elem. 8 r
y
Elem. 9
1 0.309 0.730 0.698 0.661 0.913 0.954 0.865 1.080 1.403 1.305
2 0.494 1.156 1.138 1.085 1.402 1.511 1.429 1.574 2.037 2.154
3 0.309 0.717 0.728 0.690 0.844 0.939 0.884 0.888 1.157 1.520
4 0.494 1.273 1.247 1.190 1.601 1.743 1.463 1.681 2.505 3.305
5 0.790 1.997 2.011 1.904 2.385 2.691 2.664 2.442 3.545 4.460
6 0.494 1.227 1.272 1.180 1.389 1.629 1.808 1.372 1.949 2.483
7 0.309 0.866 0.883 0.844 1.081 1.218 1.048 0.971 1.460 3.222
8 0.494 1.347 1.411 1.321 1.568 1.842 2.035 1.398 1.965 4.054
9 0.309 0.821 0.885 0.802 0.885 1.090 1.459 0.776 1.011 1.980
Sy average 2.533 2.568 2.419 3.017 3.404 3.414 3.046 4.258 6.121
Table A11
Values of r
y
at the Gauss points for the nest mesh under internal crack opening pressure
Gauss point Weight r
y
Elem. 1 r
y
Elem. 2 r
y
Elem. 3 r
y
Elem. 4 r
y
Elem. 5 r
y
Elem. 6 r
y
Elem. 7 r
y
Elem. 8 r
y
Elem. 9z
1 0.309 0.832 0.797 0.755 1.037 1.082 0.983 1.223 1.581 1.473
2 0.494 1.318 1.298 1.239 1.593 1.714 1.623 1.786 2.298 2.428
3 0.309 0.818 0.830 0.787 0.960 1.066 1.005 1.010 1.307 1.710
4 0.494 1.449 1.419 1.357 1.814 1.972 1.661 1.905 2.817 3.705
5 0.790 2.274 2.289 2.170 2.707 3.046 3.017 2.773 3.995 5.012
6 0.494 1.398 1.448 1.346 1.579 1.845 2.043 1.563 2.202 2.797
7 0.309 0.983 1.002 0.959 1.223 1.376 1.187 1.103 1.642 3.598
8 0.494 1.531 1.603 1.502 1.778 2.082 2.296 1.592 2.218 4.539
9 0.309 0.934 1.005 0.913 1.006 1.233 1.642 0.888 1.146 2.225
Sy average 2.885 2.923 2.757 3.424 3.853 3.864 3.460 4.802 6.872
4082 A. Caballero, A. Dyskin/ Engineering Fracture Mechanics 75 (2008) 40664084
A.4. Type 4 loading
See Tables A13A16.
Table A12
Computation of K
I
for plate under internal crack opening pressure
h 3 h r
y

3 h
p
1

3h
p
KI

2p
p B A
0.299 0.896 2.667 0.946 1.057
0.202 0.606 3.420 0.778 1.285
0.165 0.496 3.871 0.704 1.420
Computed coefcients 3.386 1.013 0.107
Computed K
I
5.759
Theoretic K
I
5.605
Error 2.752 %
Table A13
Values of r
xy
at the Gauss points for the coarse mesh under internal crack shear pressure
Gauss point Weight r
xy
Elem. 1 r
xy
Elem. 2 r
xy
Elem. 3 r
xy
Elem. 4 r
xy
Elem. 5 r
xy
Elem. 6 r
xy
Elem. 7 r
xy
Elem. 8 r
xy
Elem. 9
1 0.309 0.242 0.397 0.489 0.181 0.435 0.639 0.066 0.318 1.020
2 0.494 0.307 0.536 0.738 0.209 0.515 0.938 0.069 0.339 1.154
3 0.309 0.146 0.277 0.431 0.083 0.222 0.512 0.012 0.093 0.502
4 0.494 0.362 0.663 0.862 0.239 0.638 1.157 0.080 0.391 2.000
5 0.790 0.445 0.860 1.271 0.260 0.738 1.629 0.078 0.438 1.804
6 0.494 0.201 0.418 0.723 0.090 0.304 0.845 0.005 0.137 0.382
7 0.309 0.205 0.429 0.602 0.116 0.338 0.839 0.041 0.118 1.527
8 0.494 0.241 0.535 0.871 0.112 0.367 1.149 0.040 0.124 1.176
9 0.309 0.100 0.243 0.485 0.027 0.133 0.576 0.002 0.025 0.023
Sy average 0.562 1.090 1.618 0.329 0.922 2.071 0.099 0.496 2.397
Table A14
Values of r
xy
at the Gauss points for the medium mesh under internal crack shear pressure
Gauss point Weight r
xy
Elem. 1 r
xy
Elem. 2 r
xy
Elem. 3 r
xy
Elem. 4 r
xy
Elem. 5 r
xy
Elem. 6 r
xy
Elem. 7 r
xy
Elem. 8 r
xy
Elem. 9
1 0.309 0.338 0.529 0.642 0.265 0.578 0.828 0.128 0.438 1.297
2 0.494 0.442 0.725 0.974 0.325 0.703 1.221 0.157 0.492 1.491
3 0.309 0.219 0.382 0.572 0.144 0.316 0.673 0.059 0.161 0.664
4 0.494 0.511 0.882 1.127 0.365 0.856 1.492 0.174 0.559 2.525
5 0.790 0.653 1.165 1.670 0.431 1.021 2.114 0.213 0.661 2.336
6 0.494 0.312 0.581 0.956 0.179 0.445 1.109 0.078 0.244 0.551
7 0.309 0.295 0.571 0.782 0.187 0.461 1.075 0.098 0.196 1.917
8 0.494 0.364 0.726 1.140 0.209 0.524 1.483 0.124 0.232 1.522
9 0.309 0.164 0.342 0.639 0.077 0.209 0.753 0.047 0.079 0.083
Sy average 0.824 1.476 2.125 0.545 1.278 2.687 0.269 0.765 3.096
Table A15
Values of r
xy
at the Gauss points for the nest mesh under internal crack shear pressure
Gauss point Weight r
xy
Elem. 1 r
xy
Elem. 2 r
xy
Elem. 3 r
xy
Elem. 4 r
xy
Elem. 5 r
xy
Elem. 6 r
xy
Elem. 7 r
xy
Elem. 8 r
xy
Elem. 9
1 0.309 0.397 0.609 0.735 0.317 0.664 0.942 0.165 0.511 1.462
2 0.494 0.525 0.839 1.116 0.396 0.816 1.392 0.211 0.584 1.692
3 0.309 0.264 0.446 0.656 0.182 0.374 0.769 0.089 0.203 0.760
4 0.494 0.602 1.015 1.286 0.442 0.987 1.693 0.231 0.660 2.838
5 0.790 0.780 1.349 1.910 0.537 1.192 2.405 0.297 0.797 2.655
6 0.494 0.380 0.681 1.096 0.235 0.531 1.268 0.123 0.309 0.652
7 0.309 0.349 0.656 0.890 0.231 0.536 1.217 0.134 0.243 2.150
8 0.494 0.439 0.842 1.301 0.268 0.620 1.683 0.176 0.298 1.729
9 0.309 0.204 0.402 0.732 0.108 0.256 0.859 0.075 0.113 0.119
Sy average 0.985 1.709 2.431 0.679 1.494 3.057 0.375 0.929 3.514
A. Caballero, A. Dyskin/ Engineering Fracture Mechanics 75 (2008) 40664084 4083
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Table A16
Computation of K
II
for plate under internal crack shear pressure
h 3 h r
xy

3 h
p
KII

2p
p B A
0.299 0.896 1.065 0.946 1.057
0.202 0.606 1.452 0.778 1.285
0.165 0.496 1.686 0.704 1.420
Computed coefcients 1.815 1.002 0.158
Computed K
II
5.761
Theoretic K
II
5.605
Error 2.775 %
4084 A. Caballero, A. Dyskin/ Engineering Fracture Mechanics 75 (2008) 40664084