An Integrated Parallel System for Propagation of Arbitrary Cracks in Solid Models

To perform crack propagation in a solid model, a high computational power is required, mainly at three-dimensional mesh generation and structural analysis steps. At each crack propagation step, the mesh is rebuilt and a new structural analysis is performed. If a large scale cracked model is being analyzed, time consumed by mesh generation and analysis may be extremely large or even prohibitive in some cases. The main idea of the methodology presented in this work is to parallelize mesh generation and structural analysis procedures, and to integrate these procedures into a computational environment able to perform automatic arbitrary crack propagation. A parallel mesh generation algorithm has been developed. This algorithm is capable of generating three-dimensional meshes of tetrahedral elements in arbitrary domains with one or multiple embedded cracks. A finite element method program called FEMOOP, based on object oriented programming, has been adapted to implement the parallel features. The parallel strategy to solve the set of linear equations is based on an element-by-element scheme in conjunction with a gradient iterative solution. A program called FRANC3D, which is completely integrated with other components of the system, performs crack propagation and geometry updates. The entire system is described in this work and an application example is presented to show the performance and reliability of the crack propagation process.