Here, an edge crack in a finite plate is modeled according to two approaches, a two-dimensional and a three-dimensional model. As of the 6.11 release of Abaqus/CAE, it is not possible to extract energy release rate or stress intensity factors from a two-dimensional XFEM analysis. Therefore, a work around is presented where the energy release rate may be estimated according to a VCCT propagation model. To create a static analysis, the critical energies for VCCT propagation will be made artificially high to prevent propagation. For the three-dimensional model, the energy release rate or stress intensity factors may be extracted from a static crack using contour integrals.

This series of tutorials demonstrates how to build and analyze a cracked solid body using the Extended Finite Element (XFEM) functionality present in Abaqus/CAE 6.11-1. The series of tutorials will begin with the creation of a static analysis to extract quantities of interest including the energy release rate and mixed-mode stress intensity factors. Note that in Abaqus/CAE 6.11-1 only three-dimensional geometries may request energy release rate or stress intensity factor output created from contour integrals. Here, a work around is presented to extract the energy release rate for a two-dimensional geometry using a VCCT propagation model and the output request ENRRTXFEM.

Prepared By: Matthew Pais, University of Florida