Dynamic BE analysis of 3-D cracks in transversely isotropic solids Original Research Article

A boundary element approach for the analysis of three-dimensional crack problems in transversely isotropic solids under time harmonic dynamic loading conditions is presented in this paper. For the first time a single region approach based on the tractions integral representation for three-dimensional anisotropic solids under dynamic loads is presented. Hypersingular and strongly singular kernels appearing in the formulation are regularized prior to any discretization. Two different crack geometries under time harmonic impinging waves are studied. Stress intensity factors are computed from the crack opening displacements at quarter-point quadratic elements. To the authors’ knowledge, no previous results for elliptical cracks in transversely isotropic solids under dynamic loading conditions exist in the literature. The results obtained in this paper for situations where previous solutions exist, show a good agreement with those other results. The number of elements required for the analysis is rather small.