Cracking particles: a simplified meshfree method for arbitrary evolving cracks

A new approach for modelling discrete cracks in meshfree methods is described. In this method, the crack can be arbitrarily oriented, but its growth is represented discretely by activation of crack surfaces at individual particles, so no representation of the crack's topology is needed. The crack is modelled by a local enrichment of the test and trial functions with a sign function (a variant of the Heaviside step function), so that the discontinuities are along the direction of the crack. The discontinuity consists of cylindrical planes centred at the particles in three dimensions, lines centred at the particles in two dimensions. The model is applied to several 2D problems and compared to experimental data. Copyright (C) 2004 John Wiley Sons, Ltd.