Improvement of isogeometric method in crack analysis

The extended finite element method (XFEM) has proven to be an accurate and robust method for solving problems in fracture mechanics and improve weakness of classical finite element in modeling discontinuities. This method’s efficiency is in modeling discontinuity incompatible with the mesh. The discontinuities are modeled by using a set ofcontinuous and discontinuous functions that called enrichment functions and have partition of unity property. Also isogeometric analysis that using NURBS basis functions has proven to improve weakness of finite element in modeling complex geometries. In this paper we enriched the isogeometric method for analyzing of structures with cracks or discontinuities. We take advantages of XFEM in modeling discontinuities and isogeometric in modeling the geometry exactly and combined together. The results in numerical examples have been compared between these methods

Keywords:

Modeling , Discontinuity , Isogeometric , X-FEM , Level set