• Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.182-191
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• 2002

The reliable stress intensity factor analysis is required for fracture mechanics design or safety evaluation of mechanical joints at which cracks often initiate and grow. It has been reported that cracks in mechanical joints usually nucleate as corner cracks at the faying surface of joints and grow as elliptical arc through cracks. In this paper, three dimensional finite element analyses are performed for elliptical arc through cracks in mechanical joints. Thereafter stress intensity factors along elliptical crack front including two surface points are determined by the virtual crack closure technique. Virtual crack closure technique is a method to calculate stress intensity factor using the finite element analysis and can be applied to non-orthogonal mesh. As a result, the effects of clearance on the stress intensity factor are investigated and crack shape are then predicted.

• Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology
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• v.18 no.11
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• pp.1996-2008
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• 2004

A seamless analysis of material behavior incorporating complex geometry and crack- tip modeling is one of greatly interesting topics in engineering and computational fracture mechanics fields. However, there are still large gaps between the industrial applications and fundamental academic studies due to a time consuming detailed modeling. In order to resolve this problem, a numerical method to calculate an energy release rate by virtual crack closure technique was proposed in this paper. Both free mesh method and finite element method have been utilized and, thereafter, robust local and global elements for various geometries and boundary conditions were generated. A validity of the proposed method has been demonstrated through a series of fracture mechanics analyses without tedious crack-tip meshing.

• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.16 no.6
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• pp.55-59
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• 2002

Delamination means that cracking occurs on the interface layer between composite laminates. In this paper, to predict the delamination growth in composite laminates subjected to low-velocity impact, the unit load method was introduced, and an eighteen-node 3-D finite element analysis, based on assumed strain mixed formulation, was conducted. Strain energy release rate, necessary to determine the delamination growth, was calculated by using the virtual crack closure technique. The unit load method saves the computation time more than the re-meshing method. The virtual crack closure technique enables the strain energy release rate to be easily calculated, because information of the singular stress field near the crack tip is not required. Hence, the delamination growth in composite laminates that are subjected to low-velocity impact can be efficiently predicted using the above-mentioned methods.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.32 no.1A
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• pp.39-48
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• 2012

This study deals with numerical determination of stress intensity factors of adhesively patch-repaired plates with cracks at V-shaped or semicircular notches. The p-convergent anisoparametric model are considered and then three-dimensional virtual crack closure technique is presented using formulations of anisoparametric elements. In assumed displacement fields of an element, strain-displacement relations and three-dimensional constitutive equations are derived with three-dimensional hierarchical shape functions expanded from one-dimensional Lobatto functions. Transfinite mapping technique is used to represent a circular boundary. The present model provides accuracy and simplicity in terms of stress concentration factor, stress distribution, the number of degrees of freedom, and non-dimensional stress intensity factor as compared with previous works in literatures. Stress intensity factors obtained by the three-dimensional virtual crack closure technique are estimated with respect to the variation of width of finite plate, radius of notch root, angular inclination of V-shaped notch, and crack length.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.18 no.6
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• pp.731-744
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• 2004

Modified virtual crack closure integral (MVCCI) technique has become very popular for computation of strain energy release rate (SERR) and stress intensity factor (SIF) for 2-D crack problems. The objective of this paper is to propose a numerical integration procedure for MVCCI so as to generalize the technique and make its application much wider. This new procedure called as numerically integrated MVCCI (NI-MVCCI) will remove the dependence of MVCCI equations on the type of finite element employed in the basic stress analysis. Numerical studies on fracture analysis of 2-D crack (mode I and II) problems have been conducted by employing 4-noded, 8-noded (regular & quarter-point), 9-noded and 12-noded finite elements. For non-singular (regular) elements at crack tip, NI-MVCCI technique generates the same results as MVCCI, but the advantage for higher order regular and singular elements is that complex equations for MVCCI need not be derived. Gauss numerical integration rule to be employed for 8-noded singular (quarter-point) element for accurate computation of SERR and SIF has been recommended based on the numerical studies.

• Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology
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• v.20 no.12
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• pp.2159-2167
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• 2006

In order to find out a physical quantity which controls the fatigue life of a structure and to predict the fatigue life of tires, a finite element simulation methodology to use the cracking energy density (CED) and the virtual crack closure technique (VCCT) was proposed and applied to three different tires of a similar size. CED was calculated to predict the location of a crack initiation, and VCCT was used to obtain the strain energy release rate (SERR) at the tip of an initiated crack. Finite element simulations showed that SERR oscillated in the circumferential direction with its minimum occurring just before the contact zone and its maximum occurring just after the center of the contact zone, and SERR was affected significantly by the frictional force acting on the crack surface. In addition, a durability test was conducted to measure the fatigue life of the three tires. The comparison of SERR values with the test data revealed that the fatigue life increased as the amplitude of SERR decreased or as the R-ratio of SERR increased.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.31-37
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• 2017

In this paper, computation results of reducible modeling, stress recovery and energy release rate were compared with the results of VABS, Virtual Crack Closure Technique. The result of stress recovery analysis for 1-D model including the stiffness matrix is compared with stress results of three-dimensional 3-D FEM. Energy release rate of composite beam with longitudinal cracks is calculated and compare verifications of numerical analysis results of 3-D FEM and VABS. The procedure of calculating energy release rate through dimensional reduction and stress recovery is intended to be efficient and be utilized in the life-cycle of high-altitude uav's wing, wind blades and tilt rotor blade.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.27 no.10
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• pp.69-76
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• 2010

This study examined how the fracture toughness is affected according to the variation of the initial crack length and the fiber arranged angle using FEA method and experimental method. Therefore, the energy release rates were calculated and compared by J-integral method and VCCT(Virtual Crack Closure Technique). The results of fracture toughness test verified these results. At this time, the locus method was used in order to determine the energy release rate. When the results of FEA were compared with those of experiment, all of those decreased with the increase of angle between load and the fiber arranged direction. The decrease was due to reducing maximum load and stiffness, and the reason of reduction has been judged that the inplane shear stress.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.293-300
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• 2012

In this study, the delamination analysis has been implemented to investigate the initiation and propagation of crack in composite laminates composed of orthotropic materials. A simple modeling was achieved by moving nodal technique without re-meshing work when crack propagation occurred. This paper aims at achieving two specific objectives. The first is to suggest a very simple modeling scheme compared with those applied to conventional h-FEM based models. To verify the performance of the proposed model, analysis of double cantilever beams with composite materials was implemented and then the results were compared with reference values in literatures. The second one is to investigate the behavior of interior delamination problems using the proposed model. To complete these objectives, the full-discrete-layer model based on Lobatto shape functions was considered and energy release rates were calculated using three-dimensional VCCT(virtual crack closure technique) based on linear elastic fracture mechanics.

• International Journal of Aerospace System Engineering
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.7-15
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• 2020

In this paper the crack growth, modeling, and simulation of the stiffened and un-stiffened cracked panels presented using commercially available finite element software packages. Computation of stresses and convergence of stress intensity factor for single edge notch (SEN) specimens carried out using the finite element method (FEM) and extended finite element method (XFEM) and compared with an analytical solution. XFEM techniques like cohesive segment method and LEFM using virtual crack closure technique (VCCT), used for crack growth analysis and presented results for un-stiffened and stiffened panels considering various crack domain. The non-linear analysis considering both geometric and material non-linearity on stiffened panels with various stringers like a blade, L, inverted T and Z sections the results were presented. Arrived at the optimum stringer section type for the considered panel under axial loading from the numerical analysis.