Numerical aspects in the SGBEM solution of softening cohesive interface problems

Some numerical aspects of a new symmetric Galerkin boundary integral formulation presented in [A. Salvadori, A symmetric boundary integral formulation for cohesive interface problems, Comput. Mech.32 (2003) 381–391] connected with a like arc-length technique for softening cohesive interface problems introduced in [F. Freddi, Cohesive interface analysis via boundary integral equations, Ph.D. thesis, University of Bologna, Italy, 2004] are here investigated. Further, if the problem is invariant with respect to a finite group GG of congruences of the Euclidean space R2R2, we propose to reduce the computational cost of the symmetric Galerkin boundary element method (SGBEM) matrix evaluation and linear system solution using suitable restriction matrices strictly related to a system of irreducible matrix representation of GG. Some numerical simulations are presented and discussed.