Considering contact conditions between discontinuity surfaces in extended finite element method (XFEM)

This paper presents a method of satisfying contact conditions between discontinuity surfaces in the extended finite element method. Surveys have showed that contact in the discontinuity surfaces should not be neglected in numerical simulations of cracks under alternate loadings. The contact conditions between discontinuity surfaces are expressed as linear complementary form with penalty factors, thus the nonlinear contact in the discontinuity surface is resolved with one linear complementary problem; in this case, the iterative procedure can be avoided. Numerical simulations are presented to demonstrate the accuracy and potentials of this technique. Copyright (C) 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.