A variational approach for evaluation of stress intensity factors using the element free Galerkin method

A variational meshfree method has been developed to evaluate the stress intensity factors of mixed mode crack problems. The stiffness is evaluated by regular domain integrals and shape functions are determined by both the radial basis function (RBF) interpolation and the moving least-square (MLS) method. The stress intensity factors are obtained by two boundary integrals with variation of crack length. Applications of the proposed technique to two-dimensional fracture mechanics have been presented and comparisons are made with benchmark solutions. Finally, the application of the proposed method to modelling fatigue crack growth is presented.