On strategies for tracking strong discontinuities in computational failure mechanics

J. OLIVER,; A E. HUESPE; E. SAMANIEGO; E. CHAVES

Viena

Congreso; Fifth World Congress on Computational Mechanics; 2002

Eccomas

The work deals with the strategies for tracking displacement jumps (strong discontinuities) incomputational failure mechanics in the context of finite elements with embedded discontinuities.As an alternative to classical strategies, based on the spatial propagation of a selected discontinuity,a new technique is presented. The strategy lies on tracing, at once, the envelope familyof the propagation directions all over the domain and, then, select the one (or the ones) ofinterest. The mathematical problem is presented in terms of a heat-conduction like problem,which facilitates the physical perception of the results and the understanding of the numericaldifficulties. Numerical examples and application to fracture problems are presented.