crack propagation in abaqus cae

[rwwillia]

Howdy.
I have been able to model a crack and get accurate SIF values... but does anyone know how to propagate a crack using CAE? Cheers.

 

[johnsmith2]

Do you mean fatigue crack growth? da/dN?
I think in abaqus, you can model the different crack length and find the J-integral corresponding. Then, using fatigue criterion to make comparsion with experimental results.

 

[xerf]

The crack propagation in ABAQUS is based on the node release approach. You define a pair of surfaces in similar manner to contact modeling. Initially the surfaces are bonded. As the propagation criterion is fulfilled ( COD or critical stress) the nodes of the 2 surfaces will be released.

The steps to model crack propagation are explained in the documentation. For v6.5 see
ABAQUS Analysis User's Manual -> 7.9.3 Crack propagation analysis

 

[rwwillia]

I'm working with a static load (not cyclic). I want to model the crack propagation so that I can plot a load versus crack growth curve. My current model has a circlular face partition (instance) around the initial crack tip so that I could have the collapsed quarter-point elements. I figure there must be some way to propagate the crack and have the mesh move with it? Or, am I better off using Patran for my pre-processing and just use ABAQUS/Standard? I'm relatively new to this, so I'm pretty much the novice. Thanks!

 

[xerf]

The crack propagation in ABAQUS does not feature automatic remeshing during propagation.

The crack can propagate only along a "known" path, modeled as bonded contact surfaces. For more details and examples, please see the ABAQUS documentation.