A one field full discontinuous Galerkin method for Kirchhoff–Love shells applied to fracture mechanics

In order to model fracture, the cohesive zone method can be coupled in a very efficient way with the finite element method. Nevertheless, there are some drawbacks with the classical insertion of cohesive elements. It is well known that, on one the hand, if these elements are present before fracture there is a modification of the structure stiffness, and that, on the other hand, their insertion during the simulation requires very complex implementation, especially with parallel codes. These drawbacks can be avoided by combining the cohesive method with the use of a discontinuous Galerkin formulation. In such a formulation, all the elements are discontinuous and the continuity is weakly ensured in a stable and consistent way by inserting extra terms on the boundary of elements. The recourse to interface elements allows to substitute them by cohesive elements at the onset of fracture.The purpose of this paper is to develop this formulation for Kirchhoff–Love plates and shells. It is achieved by the establishment of a full DG formulation of shell combined with a cohesive model, which is adapted to the special thickness discretization of the shell formulation. In fact, this cohesive model is applied on resulting reduced stresses which are the basis of thin structures formulations. Finally, numerical examples demonstrate the efficiency of the method.

► A new computational framework for fracture of shell is developed.
► A 1-field DG formulation for shells is combined to an Extrinsic Cohesive Zone method.
► A new Traction Separation Law based on resultant stress and torque is developed.
► The framework is efficient for simulations of fracture/fragmentation of thin bodies.