XFEM for fatigue and fracture analysis of cracked stiffened panels

This paper presents the development of methodologies using Extended Finite Element Method (XFEM) for cracked unstiffened and concentric stiffened panels subjected to constant amplitude tensile fatigue loading. XFEM formulations such as level set representation of crack, element stiffness matrix formulation and numerical integration are presented and implemented in MATLAB software. Stiffeners of the stiffened panels are modelled using truss elements such that nodes of the panel and nodes of the stiffener coincide. Stress Intensity Factor (SIF) is computed from the solutions of XFEM using domain form of interaction integral. Paris's crack growth law is used to compute the number of fatigue cycles up to failure. Numerical investigations are carried out to model the crack growth, estimate the remaining life and generate damage tolerant curves. From the studies, it is observed that (i) there is a considerable increase in fatigue life of stiffened panels compared to unstiffened panels and (ii) as the external applied stress is decreasing number of fatigue life cycles taken by the component is increasing.