Issue 35

G. Kullmer et alii, Frattura ed Integrità Strutturale, 35 (2016) 368-378; DOI: 10.3221/IGF-ESIS.35.42 371 Figure 5 : Exemplary mesh for the CT-specimen with a change in stiffness, orientation angle of the change in stiffness α = 45°. For the crack growth simulation with ADAPCRACK3D the global mesh is unstitched along the crack path with the aid of a crack model. The crack model is a surface mesh that contains only the surface of the crack. At first, the crack model is built up of the mesh of the initial crack as shown in Fig. 6. Therefore, linear triangle elements with an edge length of 0.5mm are used. The initial crack has a lateral length of 2mm as defined in Fig. 3. For a growing crack, the crack model is incrementally extended with additional crack surfaces in the direction depending on the estimated mixed mode ratio. Since, as already mentioned, the present investigation in principle represents a plane problem, Poisson´s ratio is zeroed to ensure a state of plane stress and the stress intensity factor K III is neglected to avoid a twisting of the crack surface. Furthermore, ADAPCRACK3D is modified in a way that with every simulation step a uniform crack increment over the specimen thickness with a fixed lateral length is achieved. Additionally it is meaningful to use the mapped mesh-method to mesh the initial crack as shown in Fig. 6 to achieve constant crack deflection angles, because ADAPCRACK3D uses local coordinate systems based on the mesh of the previous crack surface to calculate the coordinates of the new crack front nodes. x y z model of the initial crack mesh of the initial crack Figure 6 : Positioning of the crack model inside the CT-specimen, orientation angle of the change in stiffness α = 45°. For the calculation of the stress intensity factors K I und K II ADAPCRACK3D uses the modified virtual crack closure integral (MVCCI) after Rybicki and Kanninen [3] applied to a comoving submodel composed of a regular linear