Minimum energy multiple crack propagation. Part II: Discrete Solution with XFEM.

The three-part paper deals with energy-minimal multiple crack propagation in a linear elastic solid under quasi-static conditions. The principle of minimum total energy, i.e. the sum of the potential and fracture energies, which stems directly from the Griffith's theory of cracks, is applied to the problem of arbitrary crack growth in 2D. The proposed formulation enables minimisation of the total energy of the mechanical system with respect to the crack extension directions and crack extension lengths to solve for the evolution of the mechanical system over time. The three parts focus, in turn, on (I) the theory of multiple crack growth including competing cracks, (II) the discrete solution by the extended finite element method using the minimum-energy formulation, and (III) the aspects of computer implementation within the Matlab programming language. This Part-II of our three-part paper examines three discrete solution methods for solving fracture mechanics problems based on the principle of minimum total energy. The discrete solution approach is chosen based on the stability property of the fracture configuration at hand. The first method is based on external load-control. It is suitable for stable crack growth and stable fracture configurations. The second method is based on fractured area-control. This method is applicable to stable or unstable fracture growth but it is required that the fracture front be stable. The third solution method is based on a gradient-descent approach. This approach can be applied to arbitrary crack growth problems; however, the gradient-descent formulation cannot be guaranteed to yield the optimal solution in the case of competing crack growth and an unstable fracture front configuration. The main focus is on the gradient-descent solution approach within the framework of the extended finite element discretisation. Although a viable solution method is finally proposed for resolving competing crack growth in the case of an unstable fracture front configuration, the method is not implemented within the present XFEM code but rather exists as a separate proof-of-concept algorithm that is tested against several fabricated benchmark problems. The open-source Matlab code, documentation and example cases are included as supplementary material.