Latest open access publication on fracture analysis

"Adaptive insertion of interface elements for fracture analysis: Reliable computation of interface traction" is the title of the recent open access publication by Koussay Daadouch, Vladislav Gudzulic, and Günther Meschke. It has been published by Elsevier in the journal "Computer Methods in Applied Mechanics and Engineering".

Abstract:
The cohesive zone model using interface elements is a practical and widely adopted approach for modeling crack initiation and propagation. However, enriching a model with interface elements significantly increases computational costs due to node duplication. To mitigate this, numerous adaptive insertion strategies have been developed to insert interface elements on the fly only when and where needed. Existing strategies rely on stress-based insertion criteria, which often fail to ensure timely and accurate placement of interface elements. Moreover, many existing approaches suffer from a critical limitation: poor configurations of inserted interface elements lead to significant errors in traction computation. In this paper, we investigate the state-of-the-art adaptive insertion methods focusing on the influence of interface elements configurations on traction accuracy. Based upon the findings we propose a novel algorithm that reliably computes the traction of interface elements and serves as a robust and precise insertion criterion, alleviating the limitations of existing techniques. The algorithm leverages the unique formulation of linear interface elements, enabling traction evaluation in an efficient post-processing step without requiring node duplication. Finally, we present a numerical simulation campaign that highlights the error trends inherent to existing adaptive insertion schemes and demonstrates the efficacy of the proposed method.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cma.2025.118614