Thermoelastic fracture analysis of functionally graded materials using the scaled boundary finite element method

The scaled boundary finite element method is extended to model fracture in functionally graded materials (FGM) under coupled thermo-mechanical loads. The governing equations of coupled thermo-mechanical equilibrium are discretized using scaled boundary shape functions enriched with the thermal load terms. The material gradient is modeled as a series of power functions, and the stiffness matrix is calculated semi-analytically. Stress intensity factors and T-stress are directly calculated from their definition without any need for additional post-processing techniques. Arbitrary-sided polygon elements are employed for flexible mesh generation. Several numerical examples for isotropic and orthotropic FGMs are presented to validate the proposed technique.

Automated summary

The scaled boundary finite element method is extended to model fracture in functionally graded materials under coupled thermo-mechanical loads. The proposed technique is validated through numerical examples for isotropic and orthotropic FGMs.