Please choose your delivery country and your customer group
A finite element analysis (FEA) methodology was developed to simulate brittle crack initiation, ductile or brittle crack propagation and ductile crack arrest in a single simulation using ABAQUS. Ductile fracture was modeled by employing element deletion when the equivalent plastic strain reached a critical value. Within the same FEM, brittle fracture was modeled by incorporating cohesive behavior between contact surfaces defined along the expected crack face. While this method was not as accurate as an FEM incorporating J integral calculations, its simplicity allowed simultaneous incorporation of brittle and ductile fracture. The material properties for the cohesive behavior at the crack tip were calibrated for crack initiation while the material properties for the remainder of the crack faces were calibrated for crack arrest.