ANALYSIS OF TWO COHESIVE ZONE MODELS FOR CRACK PROPAGATION IN NOTCHED BEAMS USING THE BEM

摘要

Crack propagation in a single-edge notched beam is analyzed with the three-point bending test. Two constitutive laws that describe the material softening in the cohesive zone were tested, and their results were compared. The dual boundary element method (DBEM) is employed with the traction boundary integral equation using the tangential differential operator. A constitutive law was introduced in the system of equations, and the cohesive forces were directly computed at each loading step. The results are compared with the experimental and numerical results available in the literature.