Numerical analysis of multi-crack large-scale plane problems with adaptive cross approximation and hierarchical matrices

The problem of interaction of large number of cracks in a plate is considered by the method of singular integral equations (SIE). The corresponding system of SIE is solved by using Gauss–Chebyshev quadratures, which results in a large system of linear algebraic equations. The solution of the latter employs the adaptive cross approximation (ACA) technique that has not previously been applied for studying multi-crack large-scale plane problems. Therefore, several benchmarks problems with large number of cracks modelling periodical arrangements have been tested to investigate performance of the method; these include arrays of collinear cracks, parallel cracks, and double network of parallel cracks. Comparisons with analytical and numerical periodical solutions available for the mentioned cases reveal high accuracy and fast performance of the method. It is also applied for studying effective characteristics of bodies with up to 20,000 cracks and for accurate modelling of interaction of a macrocrack with thousands of microcracks.