• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
• /
• v.76 no.6
• /
• pp.725-736
• /
• 2020

In this work the mixed mode I/III fracture of sandstone has been studied experimentally and numerically. The experimental work used three-point bending specimens containing pre-existing cracks, machined at various inclination angles so as to achieve varying proportions of mode I to mode III loading. Dimensionless stress intensity factors were calculated using the extended finite element method (XFEM) for and compared with existing results from literature calculated using conventional finite element method. A total of 28 samples were used to conduct the fracture test with 4 specimens for each of 7 different inclination angles. The fracture load and the geometry of the fracture surface were obtained for different mode mixities. Prediction of the fracture loads and the geometry of the fracture surface were made using XFEM coupled with a cohesive zone model (CZM) and showed a good comparison with the experimental results.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
• /
• v.63 no.3
• /
• pp.329-345
• /
• 2017

This paper devoted to study dynamic interaction between crack and inclusion or void by developing the eXtended Finite Element Methods (XFEM). A novel XFEM approximation is presented for these structures containing multi discontinuities (void, inclusion, and crack). The level set methods are used so that elements that include a crack segment, the boundary of a void, or the boundary of an inclusion are not required to conform to discontinuous edges. The investigation covers the effects of a single circular or elliptical void / stiff inclusion, and multi stiff inclusions on the crack propagation path under dynamic loads. Both the void and the inclusion have a significant effect on the dynamic crack propagation path. The crack initially curves towards into the void, then, the crack moves round the void and propagates away the void. If a large void lies in front of crack tip, the crack may propagate into the void. If an enough small void lies in front of crack tip, the void may have a slight or no influence on the crack propagation path. For a stiff inclusion, the crack initially propagates away the inclusion, then, after the crack moves round the inclusion, it starts to propagate along its original path. As ${\delta}$ (the ratio of the elastic modulus of the inclusion to that of the matrix) increases, a larger curvature of the crack path deflection can be observed. However, as ${\delta}$ increases from 2 to 10, the curvature has an evident increase. By comparison, the curvature has a slight increase, as ${\delta}$ increases from 10 to 1000.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
• /
• v.7 no.3
• /
• pp.233-246
• /
• 2014

Estimation of fracture initiation pressure is one of the most difficult technical challenges in hydraulic fracturing treatment of vertical or horizontal oil wells. In this study, the influence of in-situ stresses and pore pressure values on fracture initiation pressure and its profile in vertical and horizontal oil wells in a normal stress regime have been investigated. Cohesive elements with traction-separation law (XFEM-based cohesive law) are used for simulating the fracturing process in a fluid-solid coupling finite element model. The maximum nominal stress criterion is selected for initiation of damage in the cohesive elements. The stress intensity factors are verified for both XFEM-based cohesive law and analytical solution to show the validation of the cohesive law in fracture modeling where the compared results are in a very good agreement with less than 1% error. The results showed that, generally by increasing the difference between the maximum and minimum horizontal stress, the fracture pressure and its profile has been strongly changed in the vertical wells. Also, it's been clearly observed that in a horizontal well drilled in the direction of minimum horizontal stress, the values of fracture pressure have been significantly affected by the difference between overburden pressure and maximum horizontal stress. Additionally, increasing pore pressure from under-pressure regime to over-pressure state has made a considerable fall on fracture pressure in both vertical and horizontal oil wells.

• Computers and Concrete
• /
• v.32 no.1
• /
• pp.99-117
• /
• 2023

The crack under the influence of the higher intensities of the stresses grows and the structure gets collapsed with the time when the crack length reaches to critical value. Therefore, the fracture behavior of a structure in terms of stress intensity factors (SIF) becomes important to determine the remaining fracture strength and capacity of material and structure for avoiding catastrophic failure, increasing safety and further improvement in the design. The robustness of the method has been demonstrated by comparing the numerical results with analytical and experimental results of some problems. XFEM is used to model cracks and holes in structures and predict their strength and reliability under service conditions. Further, XFEM is extended with a stochastic method for predicting the sensitivity in terms of output COVs and fracture strength in terms of mean values of stress intensity factors (SIFs) of a structure with discontinuities (cracks and holes) under tensile loading condition with input individual and combined randomness in different system parameters. In stochastic technique, the second order perturbation technique (SOPT) has been used for the predicting the fracture behavior of the structures. The stochastic/perturbation technique is also known as Taylor series expansion method and it provides the reliable results if the input randomness is less than twenty percentage. From the present numerical analysis it is observed that, the crack tip near to the hole is under the influence of the stress concentration and the variational effect of the input random parameters on the crack tip in terms of the SIFs are lesser so the COVs are the less sensitive. The COVs of mixed mode SIFs are the most sensitive for the crack angles (α=45° to 90°) for all the values of c₁ and d₁. The plate with the shorter distance between hole and crack is the most sensitive with all the crack angles but the crack tip which is much nearer to the hole has the highest sensitivity.

• Advances in concrete construction
• /
• v.8 no.4
• /
• pp.269-276
• /
• 2019

The cracking and spalling caused by fracture of concrete lining have adverse impacts on serviceability and durability of the tunnel, and the subsequent maintenance work for damaged structure needs to be specific to the damaging causes. In this paper, a particular case study of an operational tunnel structure is presented for the serious cracking and spalling behaviours of concrete lining, focusing on the multi-factors inducing lining failure. An integrated field investigation is implemented to characterize the spatial distribution of damages and detailed site situations. According to results of nondestructive inspection, insufficient lining thickness and cavity behind lining are the coupled-inducement of lining failure bahaviors. To further understanding of the lining structure performance influenced by these multiple construction deficiencies, a reliable numerical simulation based on extended finite element method (XFEM) is performed by using the finite element software. The numerical model with 112 m longitudinal calculation, 100 m vertical calculation and 43 m vertical depth, and the concrete lining with 1450 solid elements are set enrichment shape function for the aim of simulating cracking behavior. The numerical simulation responses are essentially in accordance with the actual lining damaging forms, especially including a complete evolutionary process of lining spalling. This work demonstrates that the serious lining damaging behaviors are directly caused by a combination of insufficient thickness lining and cavity around the surrounding rocks. Ultimately, specific maintenance work is design based on the construction deficiencies, and that is confirmed as an efficient, time-saving and safe maintenance method in the operational railway tunnel.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
• /
• v.69 no.2
• /
• pp.221-230
• /
• 2019

In this paper, shear behavior of non-persistent joint surrounded in concrete and gypsum layers has been investigated using experimental test and numerical simulation. Two types of mixture were prepared for this study. The first type consists of water and gypsum that were mixed with a ratio of water/gypsum of 0.6. The second type of mixture, water, sand and cement were mixed with a ratio of 27%, 33% and 40% by weight. Shear behavior of a non-persistent joint embedded in these specimens is studied. Physical models consisting of two edge concrete layers with dimensions of 160 mm by 130 mm by 60 mm and one internal gypsum layer with the dimension of 16 mm by 13 mm by 6 mm were made. Two horizontal edge joints were embedded in concrete beams and one angled joint was created in gypsum layer. Several analyses with joints with angles of $0^{\circ}$, $30^{\circ}$, and $60^{\circ}$ degree were conducted. The central fault places in 3 different positions. Along the edge joints, 1.5 cm vertically far from the edge joint face and 3 cm vertically far from the edge joint face. All samples were tested in compression using a universal loading machine and the shear load was induced because of the specimen geometry. Concurrent with the experiments, the extended finite element method (XFEM) was employed to analyze the fracture processes occurring in a non-persistent joint embedded in concrete and gypsum layers using Abaqus, a finite element software platform. The failure pattern of non-persistent cracks (faults) was found to be affected mostly by the central crack and its configuration and the shear strength was found to be related to the failure pattern. Comparison between experimental and corresponding numerical results showed a great agreement. XFEM was found as a capable tool for investigating the fracturing mechanism of rock specimens with non-persistent joint.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
• /
• v.81 no.6
• /
• pp.665-675
• /
• 2022

The safety problems of giant hydraulic structures such as dams caused by terrorist attacks, earthquakes, and wars often have an important impact on a country's economy and people's livelihood. For the national defense department, timely and effective assessment of damage to or impending damage to dams and other structures is an important issue related to the safety of people's lives and property. In the field of damage assessment and vulnerability analysis, it is usually necessary to give the damage assessment results within a few minutes to determine the physical damage (crack length, crater size, etc.) and functional damage (decreased power generation capacity, dam stability descent, etc.), so that other defense and security departments can take corresponding measures to control potential other hazards. Although traditional numerical calculation methods can accurately calculate the crack length and crater size under certain combat conditions, it usually takes a long time and is not suitable for rapid damage assessment. In order to solve similar problems, this article combines simulation calculation methods with machine learning technology interdisciplinary. First, the common concrete gravity dam shape was selected as the simulation calculation object, and XFEM (Extended Finite Element Method) was used to simulate and calculate 19 cracks with different initial positions. Then, an LSTM (Long-Short Term Memory) machine learning model was established. 15 crack paths were selected as the training set and others were set for test. At last, the LSTM model was trained by the training set, and the prediction results on the crack path were compared with the test set. The results show that this method can be used to predict the crack propagation path rapidly and accurately. In general, this article explores the application of machine learning related technologies in the field of mechanics. It has broad application prospects in the fields of damage assessment and vulnerability analysis.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
• /
• v.48 no.1
• /
• pp.125-150
• /
• 2013

This paper intends to present an application of isogeometric analysis in crack problems. An isogeometric formula is developed based on NURBS basis functions - enriched and adopted via X-FEM enrichment functions. The proposed method which is represented by the combination of the two above-mentioned methods, first by using NURBS functions models the geometry exactly and then by defining level set function on domain, identifies available discontinuity in elements. Additional DOFs are allocated to elements containing the crack and X-FEM enrichment functions enrich approximate solution. Moreover, a subelement refinement technique is used to improve the accuracy of integration by the Gauss quadrature rule. Finally, several numerical examples are illustrated to demonstrate the effectiveness, robustness and accuracy of the proposed method during calculation of crack parameters.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
• /
• v.31 no.3
• /
• pp.287-293
• /
• 2011

The enamel, the upper layer of a tooth has remarkable capability of bearing severe loading on the tooth. The fracture behavior is important to understand the mechanism of load bearing and it could be very useful for developing new materials. Non-destructive evaluation of such materials will also benefit from this knowledge. The graded microstructures of enamel were modeled by finite element analysis software and the J-integrals and the stress intensity factors were evaluated as the fracture parameters. The results show that these parameters are location dependent. Those values increase when measured in the direction of dentine enamel junction. This finding matched well with experiments and implies many useful understanding of biomaterials and applications to new materials.

• Proceedings of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute Conference
• /
• 2007.04a
• /
• pp.507-512
• /
• 2007

A new type of extended element-free Galerkin method (XFEM) is proposed on this paper. The blending region which was inevitable in the extended finite element method and the extended meshfree method is removed in this method. For this end, two different techniques are developed. The first one is the modification of the domain of influence so that the crack tip is always placed on the edge of a domain of influence. The second method is the use of the Lagrange multiplier. The crack is virtually extended beyond the actual crack tip. The virtual extension was forced close by the Lagrange multiplier. The first method can be applied to two dimensional problems only Lagrange multiplier method can be used in both two and three dimensions.