Automatic crack-insertion for arbitrary crack growth

A crack-insertion tool for automatic non-planar crack propagation calculations is under development. The final volume mesh of the cracked structure is achieved by a new approach. The cracked structure boundary is modelled as a discretized skin. A tube-like domain enclosing the crack-front is traced and filled with hexahedral elements while the remaining cracked structure is meshed with tetrahedral elements. The two separate meshes are finally connected by linear MPC equations. Results show that the method works very well for curved crack shapes in complex structures.