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BIFURCATIONS AND INSTABILITIES IN FRACTURE OF COHESIVE‐SOFTENING STRUCTURES: A BOUNDARY ELEMENT ANALYSIS †
Author(s) -
Cen Z.,
Maier G.
Publication year - 1992
Publication title -
fatigue and fracture of engineering materials and structures
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.887
H-Index - 84
eISSN - 1460-2695
pISSN - 8756-758X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1460-2695.1992.tb00066.x
Subject(s) - instability , boundary element method , softening , materials science , structural engineering , fracture mechanics , mechanics , finite element method , boundary value problem , linear elasticity , cohesive zone model , mathematical analysis , composite material , mathematics , engineering , physics
The “cohesive‐crack model” is adopted, together with the hypotheses of small deformations and linear elasticity outside the process zone or “craze”, for the simulation of fracture processes in structures of concrete‐like materials. A “direct”, collocation, multidomain boundary element method is employed and shown to be computationally effective in the considered situations, which are characterized by non‐linearity on interfaces only. Iterative algorithms for the direction search and interface adjustment in propagation analysis and for the determination of the response to a craze‐tip advancement are developed and numerically tested. Softening as an instabilizing factor embodied in the cohesive‐crack model may give rise to path bifurcations (“equilibrium branching”), instability under load control and intrinsic (“snapback”) instability. These phenomena are analysed by the proposed boundary element procedure and discussed.