Extraction of stress intensity factors from generalized finite element solutions

The performance of several superconvergent techniques to extract stress intensity factors (SIFs) from numerical solutions computed with the generalized finite element method is investigated. The contour integral, the cutoff function and the J-integral methods are considered. An implementation of the extraction techniques based on a sequence of mappings that are independent of the underlying solution method or discretization is proposed. It is shown that this approach is suitable for virtually any mesh-free or mesh-based solution method. Several numerical examples demonstrating the convergence of the computed SIF and the flexibility of the proposed implementation are presented. The path independence of the extraction methods is also investigated. Numerical experiments demonstrate that the contour integral and the cutoff function methods are more robust than the J-integral method with the CFM being the most accurate.