Simulation of brittle crack growth in functionally graded materials

We consider a thermodynamic consistent framework for crack propagation by applying a dissipation inequality to a time dependent migrating control volume. The direction of crack growth is obtained in terms of material forces as a result of the principle of maximum dissipation. In the numerical implementation a staggered algorithm – deformation update for fixed geometry followed by geometry update for fixed deformation – is employed within each time increment. The corresponding mesh is generated by combining Delaunay triangulation with local mesh refinement. A numerical example with inhomogeneous material properties illustrates the capability of the resulting algorithm. (© 2008 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)