Fracture analysis deals with the computation of fracture parameters that help you design within the limits of catastrophic failure of a structure. Fracture analysis assumes the presence of a crack in the structure. The fracture parameters computed are Stress Intensity Factors (SIFS), J-Integral (JINT), Energy Release Rates, Material Force, T-Stress and C*-Integral.
When a crack is associated with a SMART Crack Growth you can also compute Equivalent SIFS Range fracture results and time history results (Fracture Probes) on any crack front node.
A Fracture analysis requires that you define a crack using an available crack definition or to initiate a crack by specifying criterion using the Crack Initiation feature. Since fracture parameter calculation requires knowledge of the mesh characteristics around the crack, the mesh must be generated before solving for fracture parameters. Fracture parameter computation is only applicable to Static Structural and Transient Structural analyses.
The following sections further describe the aspects of a Fracture Analysis as well as additional features available in the Fracture object of the application.
- 5.5.1. Fracture Analysis Workflows
- 5.5.2. Limitations of Fracture Analysis
- 5.5.3. Fracture Meshing
- 5.5.4. Cracks
- 5.5.5. SMART Crack Growth
- 5.5.6. Crack Initiation and Propagation using SMART Crack Growth
- 5.5.7. Interface Delamination and Contact Debonding
- 5.5.8. Multi-Point Constraint (MPC) Contact for Fracture
- 5.5.9. Solving a Fracture Analysis
- 5.5.10. Extracting Fracture Results from a Result File
Additional topics include:
| Fracture Results |
| Fracture Probes (SMART Crack Growth Only) |
Mechanical APDL References
See the Fracture Analysis Guide in the Mechanical APDL documentation for additional information about fracture analyses. You may also wish to review the Fracture Analysis Benchmarks section. This section provides a set of benchmark examples that you can use to evaluate fracture-analysis capabilities. The benchmark results are compared with results from reference calculations, handbook solutions, and experimental testing.