Calculation of J-integral and stress intensity factors using The Material Point Method

The Material Point Method (MPM), which is a particle-based, meshless method that discretizes material bodies into a collection of material points (the particles), is a new method for numerical analysis of dynamic solid mechanics problems. Recently, MPM has been generalized to include dynamic stress analysis of structures with explicit cracks. This paper considers evaluation of crack-tip parameters, such as J-integral and stress intensity factors, from MPM calculations involving explicit cracks. Examples for both static and dynamic problems for pure modes I and II or mixed mode loading show that MPM works well for calculation of fracture parameters. The MPM results agree well with results obtained by other numerical methods and with analytical solutions.