The interaction integral for fracture of orthotropic functionally graded materials: evaluation of stress intensity factors

The interaction integral is an accurate and robust scheme for evaluating mixed-mode stress intensity factors. This paper extends the concept to orthotropic functionally graded materials and addresses fracture mechanics problems with arbitrarily oriented straight and/or curved cracks. The gradation of orthotropic material properties are smooth functions of spatial coordinates, which are integrated into the element stiffness matrix using the so-called generalized isoparametric formulation. The types of orthotropic material gradation considered include exponential, radial, and hyperbolic-tangent functions. Stress intensity factors, for mode I and mixed-mode two-dimensional problems are evaluated by means of the interaction integral and the finite element method. Extensive computational experiments have been performed to validate the proposed formulation. The accuracy of numerical results is discussed by comparison with available analytical, semi-analytical, or numerical solutions. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.