Meshless modelling of crack growth with discrete rotating crack segments

A novel meshless method of propagation of cohesive cracks is presented. In the method, the crack is modeled by overlapping crack segments that are located only at the nodes. They are inserted when a certain failure criterion is met. The crack segments are perpendicular to the direction of the maximum principal stress. They can rotate during the coarse of the simulation when directional changes in the maximum principal stress occur. It will be shown that fixed crack models lead to over-smearing the crack and too stiff responses of the system. The advantage of this method is that it does not require algorithms to track the crack path. © 2008 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC.