Computing a-posteriori bounds for stress intensity factors in elastic fracture mechanics

Abstract

This paper mainly focuses on computing the lower and upper bounds on stress intensity factors in elastic fracture mechanics with an efficient finite element output bound procedure on quantities of interest in engineering. The bounds procedure is obtained by minimizing the quadratic energy functional of output with constraints of equilibrium conditions of mechanics and continuity conditions of finite element space. The computation is based on solving the elemental Neumann residual problems for the bounds on energy norm of error in finite element solutions. The lower and upper bounds on the intensity factors of an open mode and a shear mode elastic fracture problems are computed in this paper. © 2004 Kluwer Academic Publishers.