A meshless method with enriched weight functions for fatigue crack growth

The meshless method is particularly appropriate to solve crack propagation problems. In this paper, the fatigue growth of cracks in two-dimensional bodies is considered. The analysis is based upon Paris’ equation. New enriched weight functions are introduced in the meshless method formulation to capture the singularity at the crack tip. Simple problems show the accuracy and efficiency of this method. Then, it is applied to fatigue analysis of single- and multi-cracked bodies under mixed-mode conditions