A variational formulation in fracture mechanics

A variational approach to linear elasticity problems is considered. The family of variational principles is proposed based on the linear theory of elasticity and the method of integrodifferential relations. The idea of this approach is that the constitutive relation is specified by an integral equality instead of the local Hooke’s law and the modified boundary value problem is reduced to the minimization of a nonnegative functional over all admissible displacements and equilibrium stresses. The conditions of decomposition on two separated problems with respect to displacements and stresses are found for the variational problems formulated and the relation between the approach under consideration and the minimum principles for potential and complementary energies is shown. The effective local and integral criteria of solution quality are proposed. A numerical algorithm based on the piecewise polynomial approximations of displacement and stress fields over an arbitrary domain triangulation are worked out to obtained numerical solutions and estimate their convergence rates. Numerical results for 2D linear elasticity problems with cracks are presented and discussed