Analysis of bimaterial interface cracks using the localized method of fundamental solutions

This short communication makes the first attempt to apply the localized method of fundamental solutions (LMFS), a newly-developed meshless collocation method, for fracture mechanics analysis of bimaterial interface crack problems. The asymptotic crack-tip field for bimaterial interface cracks exhibits an oscillatory behavior which is quite different from that for in-plane cracks in homogeneous materials. This paper describes an enriched LMFS approach whereby a set of enrichment functions are embedded in the classical LMFS approximation to account for the presence of interface cracks. This method automatically incorporates the oscillatory behavior of the near-tip fields and thus the complex stress intensity factors (SIFs) can be solved accurately with no or very little remeshing. The results presented show excellent accuracy for a range of two-dimensional (2D) bimaterial with interface cracks, where the complex SIFs for interface cracks are computed with relatively errors less than 0.6 per cent. (C) 2021 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.