A NUMERICAL GREENS-FUNCTION APPROACH FOR BOUNDARY ELEMENTS APPLIED TO FRACTURE-MECHANICS

The most accurate boundary element formulation to deal with fracture mechanics problems is obtained with the implementation of the associated Green's function acting as the fundamental solution. Consequently, the range of applications of this formulation is dependent on the availability of the appropriate Green's function for actual crack geometry. Analytical Green's functions have been presented for a few single crack configurations in 2-D applications and require complex variable theory. This work extends the applicability of the formulation through the introduction of efficient numerical means of computing the Green's function components for single or multiple crack problems, of general geometry, including: the implementation to 3-D problems as a future development. Also, the approach uses real variables only and well-established boundary integral equations.