Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Fracture analysis of plates and shells using FEM and XFEM

  • Technical paper
  • Published:
Innovative Infrastructure Solutions Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Fracture mechanics is the field of mechanics concerned with the study of propagation of cracks in materials and recognizes the role of cracks in the performance of structures leading to damage tolerant design approach. Cracks or crack like defects is observed in many structures which may lead to their catastrophic failure under a tensile stress field. In this paper, the structural integrity of plates with surface and embedded cracks is investigated using ABAQUS FEA code and the fracture parameter—stress intensity factor (SIF)—is evaluated. Convergence study is conducted to arrive at the optimum mesh parameters using both the conventional finite element method and the extended finite element method (XFEM). The FE model is validated by comparing FE results with published numerical solutions. The effect of varying crack depth and location on SIF is studied. The FE results matched well with the closed-form solutions and experimental results. It is observed that the crack depth and its location have significant influence on SIF. The conventional finite element method requires a mesh that conforms to the crack geometry, typically with a very detailed, focused mesh at the crack tip. The crack front must be defined explicitly and must specify the virtual crack extension direction in addition to matching the mesh to the cracked geometry. XFEM gives better result for cylindrical shells without mesh refinement around crack tip.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6
Fig. 7
Fig. 8
Fig. 9
Fig. 10
Fig. 11
Fig. 12
Fig. 13
Fig. 14
Fig. 15
Fig. 16
Fig. 17
Fig. 18
Fig. 19
Fig. 20
Fig. 21

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Newman JC Jr (1972) Fracture Analysis of Surface and Through Cracked Sheets and Plates. Eng Fract Mech 5(3):667–689

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Newman JC, Raju IS (1980) Stress analysis and fracture of surface cracks in cylindrical pressure vessels. NASA Langley Research Centre-23681,12 (6): 789-805

  3. Newman JC, Raju IS (1982) Stress intensity factor influence coefficients for internal and external surface cracks in cylindrical vessels. J Pressure Vessel Technol 104(3):293–298

    Google Scholar 

  4. Newman JC, Raju IS (1984) Stress-intensity factor equations for cracks in three-dimensional finite bodies subjected to tension and bending loads. NASA Technical Memorandum 85793:1–40

    Google Scholar 

  5. Zahoor A (1985) Closed form expression for fracture mechanics analysis of cracked pipes. J Pressure Vessel Technol 107(2):1–10

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Stojan S, Aleksandar S (1992) An analysis of surface crack growth in full-scale pressure vessels. In: Fracture mechanics: twenty second symposium, pp. 850–585

  7. Sandeep KJ, Lakshminarayana HV, Kiran KN (2014) Finite element modeling for fracture mechanics analysis of aircraft fuselage structure. Int J Eng Res Technol 8(3):1277–1285

    Google Scholar 

  8. Yugal KS, Moulick SK (2015) Analysis of semi-elliptical crack in a thick walled cylinder using FEM. Int J Adv Eng Res Stud 231:235

    Google Scholar 

  9. Pejo K, Ana K, Filip S (2015) Parametric analysis for determination of fracture mechanics parameters needed for structural integrity assessment of pressure vessel. In: 10th International scientific conference on production engineering, pp. 1–6

  10. Mohammad M, Leandro LS, Felicio B, Barros Roque LS, Pitangueira Samuel SP (2017) Two-dimensional fracture modeling with the generalized/extended finite element method: An object-oriented programming approach. In: Advances in Engineering Software, pp. 1–26

  11. Fakkoussi S, Moustabchir H, Elkhalfi A, Pruncu CI (2019) Computation of the stress intensity factor KI for external longitudinal semi-elliptic cracks in the pipelines by FEM and XFEM method. Int J Interact Design Manuf 13(2):545–555

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Zamani N, Habibi N, Minaee K (2014) The numerical and analytical analysis of stress intensity factor of semi elliptical crack on a spherical pressure vessel. In: 2nd Conference on oil and gas storage tanks

  13. Moulick SK, Sahu KY (2012) Analysis of semi-elliptical crack in a thick walled cylinder using FEM. Int J Adv Eng Res Stud 4:231–235

    Google Scholar 

  14. Rao BN, Rahman S (2003) An interaction integral method for analysis of cracks in orthotropic functionally graded materials. Comput Mech 32(1–2):40–51

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Hampton WR, Nelson D (2002) Stable crack growth and instability prediction in thin plates and cylinders. Eng Fract Mech 70:469–491

    Article  Google Scholar 

  16. Peyman F, Vahid B, Mahdi K (2015) Stress intensity factor calculation for semi-elliptical cracks on functionally graded material coated cylinders. Struct Eng Mech 55(6):1087–1097

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. Chen YZ (2000) Stress intensity factors in a finite length cylinder with a circumferential crack. Int J Pressure Vessels Pip 77:439–444

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. Meshii T, Watanabe K (2001) Stress intensity factor evaluation of a circumferential crack in a finite length thin walled cylinder for arbitrarily distributed stress on crack surface by weight function method. Nuclear Eng Design 206(1):13–20

    Article  Google Scholar 

  19. Tong WC, Joseph ES (2005) Fracture response of externally flawed aluminium cylindrical shells under internal gaseous detonation loading. Indian J Fish 16:1–46

    Google Scholar 

  20. Ramesh CS (1975) Effects of combined loadings on fracture and flaw growth. Am Inst Aeronautics Astronautics J 3(9):1158–1168

    Google Scholar 

  21. Steven X, Darrell RL, Dauglas A, Scarth, Russel CC (2014) Closed-form relations for stress intensity factor influence coefficients for axial ID surface flaws in cylinders. In: Proceedings of ASME 2014 pressure vessels and piping conference

  22. Roy WH, Drew N (2002) Stable crack growth and instability prediction in thin plates and cylinders. Eng Fracture Mech 70:469–491

    Google Scholar 

  23. Abdulnaser MA, Ariffin AK, Almaghrabi MN (2009) Development of efficient FE software of crack propagation simulation using adaptive mesh strategy. Am J Appl Sci 6(4):661–666

    Article  Google Scholar 

  24. Do-Jun S, Steven, Darrell L (2014) Closed-form stress intensity factor solution for circumferential through wall cracks in cylinder. In: Proceedings of ASME 2014 pressure vessels and piping conference, pp. 1–8

  25. Hongjun Y, Linzhi W, Licheng G, Huaping Wu, Shanyi Du (2010) An interaction integral method for 3D curved cracks in non-homogeneous materials with complex interfaces. Int J Solids Struct 47:2178–2179

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. M.Tech Structural Engineering, School of Civil Engineering, Vellore Institute of Technology, Vellore, Tamil Nadu, India

    V. A. Malavika

  2. Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre, ISRO, Valiamala, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, India

    A. K. Asraff & Manoj Kumar

  3. Department of Structural and Geotechnical Engineering, School of Civil Engineering, Vellore Institute of Technology, Vellore, Tamil Nadu, India

    A. Sofi

Authors
  1. V. A. Malavika
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. A. K. Asraff
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Manoj Kumar
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. A. Sofi
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to A. Sofi.

Ethics declarations

Conflict of interest

On behalf of all authors, the corresponding author states that there is no conflict of interest.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Malavika, V.A., Asraff, A.K., Kumar, M. et al. Fracture analysis of plates and shells using FEM and XFEM. Innov. Infrastruct. Solut. 6, 43 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41062-020-00439-z

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s41062-020-00439-z

Keywords

Search

Navigation